VICTORY


It was a crisp November night. The artificial brilliance of
Broadway was rivalled by a glorious moonlit sky. The first autumn
frost was in the air, and on the side-streets long rows of
taxicabs were standing, their motors blanketed, their chauffeurs
threshing their arms to rout the cold. A few well-bundled cabbies,
perched upon old-style hansoms, were barking at the stream of
hurrying pedestrians. Against a background of lesser lights myriad
points of electric signs flashed into everchanging shapes, winking
like huge, distorted eyes; fanciful designs of liquid fire ran up
and down the walls or blazed forth in lurid colors. From the
city's canons came an incessant clanging roar, as if a great river
of brass and steel were grinding its way toward the sea.

Crowds began to issue from the theatres, and the lines of waiting
vehicles broke up, filling the streets with the whir of machinery
and the clatter of hoofs. A horde of shrill-voiced urchins pierced
the confusion, waving their papers and screaming the football
scores at the tops of their lusty lungs, while above it all rose
the hoarse tones of carriage callers, the commands of traffic
officers, and the din of street-car gongs.

In the lobby of one of the playhouses a woman paused to adjust her
wraps, and, hearing the cries of the newsboys, petulantly
exclaimed:

"I'm absolutely sick of football. That performance during the
third act was enough to disgust one."