always put things on a lower level than college fellows should go.
Besides, if things went too far a word from himself would check them.

Courtland was rather bored with the play, and was almost on the point of
going back to study when the cry arose and panic followed.

Courtland was no coward. He tore off his handsome overcoat and rushed to
meet the emergency. On the opposite side of the gallery, high up by
another fire-escape he rendered efficient assistance to many.

The fire was gaining in the pit; and still there were people down there,
swarms of them, struggling, crying, lifting piteous hands for
assistance. Still Stephen Marshall reached from the gallery and pulled
up, one after another, poor creatures, and still the helpless thronged
and cried for aid.

Dizzy, blinded, his eyes filled with smoke, his muscles trembling with
the terrible strain, he stood at his post. The minutes seemed
interminable hours, and still he worked, with heart pumping painfully,
and mind that seemed to have no thought save to reach down for another
and another, and point up to safety.

Then, into the midst of the confusion there arose an instant of great
and awful silence. One of those silences that come even into great sound
and claim attention from the most absorbed.

Paul Courtland, high in his chosen station, working eagerly,
successfully, calmly, looked down to see the cause of this sudden
arresting of the universe; and there, below, was the pit full of flame,
with people struggling and disappearing into fiery depths below. Just