UNBIDDEN GUESTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19350, 10 December 1924, Page 10

UNBIDDEN GUESTS.

“LATE SUPPER PARTY.” ANOTHER TELEPHONE HOAX. An unrehearsed comedv, which might, be called “The Unbidden Guests,” has been enacted in London at the house of a wellknown West End actress. The guests, numbering about 40. drove up to the house for the feast which they had been told to expect, but they went away hungry while their “hostess” watched their departure from her bedroom window with considerable relief, not unmixed with a little chagrin. Most of the characters in the comedy were theatrical celebrities. The story of “The Unbidden Guests” was afterwards related bv (he actress hostess. Miss Tallulah Bankhead, a charming young American girl, who is appearing in “The Croaking Chair” at the Comedy Theatre ‘T am so glad to bo able to explain to all my friends how it happened,” said Miss Bankhead. "They have been hoaxed, and so have I. The first inkling I had of it was late on Friday night, when an old friend rang me up at the Comedy to ask me if I would mind him coming to my party in a lounge suit, as he had only iust returned from the country. I told him I knew nothing of a party, and he then said he had received an invitation by telephone to a late supper party. Shortly after that my butler rang up. He was in despair. There was nothing in the house to feed 40 people, and he thought it too bad of mo to spring a party like that upon him so late at night. “Guessing that someone hod been playing a practical joke, I hurried home to wait for the guests, who had certainly not been invited by me. I told the butler to explain as best he could to the people who came, but by one o’clock in the morning it was beginning to get on my nerves. So I locked up the house and turned out all the lights. *"

“Then the latc-eomers began to arrive. Motor cars and taxis were stopping outside my house, and their occupants ringing my bell, and getting no reply, to their obvious surprise, until nearly 3 a.m, I was nearly worn out by the strain, but I could not go to bed, so I kept watch through the blinds.

“And now, when I do want a party I probably .will not be able to get anyone to come.”