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December 459 |
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solemnly invested as they pass from the dressing-room, and a card, with pencil attached, is given to each.
They are expected to guess one another's identity, in spite of all efforts to foil detection, and the names are to be noted on the card, accompanied by his or her special mark by way of signature.
At the sound of a bell slowly and solemnly tolled the guests add their signatures to their cards, which they then drop into a box draped with black.
If, in placing the cards within it, a slight electric shock could be delivered from a small hidden battery, the uncanny effect would be emphasised.
The one whose card bears the greatest number of correct guesses may have a prize, and another be presented to the one who has best concealed his identity.
An occasional waltz is danced to the slowest possible accompaniment of muffled music, but square dances are most appropriate if walked through with the solemn stateliness befitting the ideal ghost.
A bell is slowly tolled to announce supper, served at eleven o'clock or before, on plain white dishes, the table decorated with white flowers. The menu may keep to ghostly white consisting of clam bouillon or creamed oysters, chicken salad, sandwiches, angel cake, kisses, vanilla ice-cream, peppermints, and other white bonbons.
The guests unmask at supper, return to human, fleshly habitations, and are as merry as they please.
To be so absorbed in frolic as to ignore entirely the great event commemorated on the "holy night" would be to carry fun too far.
Upon returning to the drawing-room (from which all suggestions of gruesomeness are removed) after supper, the lights may be turned down, and after the solemn |
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