But the joke was passed around and caused considerable merriment among the wise ones.
The only thing I allowed the elocution teacher and directress to do was to put on my make-up for me ... including the sticking to my face of a close Van Dyke beard....
I refused to avail myself of her instruction for acting, as I perceived that was all bosh....
The curtain went up, I sitting there, the orchestra softly breathing Massenet's Elegy—meant to be the music sent from the spirit world, the melody that I, Iistral, heard, whenever my dead mistress was present....
The orchestra finished the melody. It stopped and left the house in expectancy.
A mistake had been made on the entrance-cue of little Lisel, my child-nephew.
There I sat, in my strange robe, like a bath-robe, with stars cast over it, waiting.
I knew something had gone wrong.