Ring up the curtain

I caught her in my arms; she kissed me, pushed me gently away, and added: “Ring up the curtain, uncle. Little Moccasin is ready"

She remembered perfectly the first sign he had given of it — it had been like the bell that was to ring up the curtain upon the real drama of their life.

After Congress had waited as long as it was willing to wait for Durant to ring up the curtain, it was lucky when all seemed lost to get the blessing, the services, and a great deal of the personal capital of one of the most wrongly judged men in the history of American railroad leadership: Oakes Ames.

He was one of those who hold that revolutions are not made with rose-water; and with strange prescience he looked to the Russian peasant's hatred of his oppressors to ring up the curtain on a world-drama that should mean the destruction of civilisation.