From: TED FAIRHEAD

....After stepping into the gloomy hallway, my Host, dressed in a
blood red devil's costume, spoke in a deep sepulchral voice,
"Welcome to the Fools and Angels Club!  My name is Nicholas
Tredemon, but most people simply call me `Tred'".  His incredibly
ugly pockmarked face twisted into a grimace of pain, which I
realised was his way of smiling pleasantly.
     I thought, `....maybe I will make some money out of this gig
after all' as I followed him downstairs to a large dimly lit
basement room.  A crowd of partygoers chatted together, seemingly
very nervously, so the overall effect was of birds twittering at
night when a cat discovers their roosting place!
     All of the men were dressed in old fashioned Fool's costumes
with harlequin decorations and tiny bells on their caps and their
toes, while the women were draped in flimsy gossamer material with
angel's wings attached to their shoulders.
     The room had a raised platform at one end and my new-found
"friend" stepped behind a screen so that he was hidden from the
crowd.  He announced that the club was pleased to present an
eminent magician in keeping with the spirit of All Hallow's Eve,
and pointed me towards the stage.
     The first portion of my act was received politely and then as
a finale I erected a large cage and "magically" producing one white
dove after another, filling it to capacity with whirling diving
birds.  Then, throwing a large black cloth over the cage, I chanted
a nonsensical incantation, and whipped the covering away to
disclose `Tred' standing there in all of his ugly demonic splendor.
     There was a stunned silence for a while, then shrill screams
of fear came from the women while the men patted them trying to
comfort them.  Tred quickly left and as the room began to quiet
down, leaving only the soft murmuring of the `Fools,' I asked one
of the ushers, "What the, if you'll pardon the expression, HELL was
all that about?"
     "Don't you get it" he said, "Fools are hushing Angels'
fear of Tred!"

