Gentlemen and ladies, in the Christmas time.
[After this note of preparation, Old Father Christmas capers into the room, saying,—
Here comes I, Old Father Christmas,
Welcome or welcome not;
I hope Old Father Christmas
Will never be forgot.
I was born in a rocky country, where there was no wood to make me a cradle; I was rocked in a stouring-bowl, which made me round shouldered then, and I am round shouldered still.
[He then frisks about the room, until he thinks he has sufficiently amused the spectators, when he makes his exit, with this speech:—
Who went to the orchard to steal apples to make gooseberry pies against Christmas?
[These prose speeches, you may suppose, depend much upon the imagination of the actor.