Her escort smiled. "Oh, you take it too seriously," he said.
"Those boys don't mean anything. That was merely Youth--
irrepressible Youth, on a tear. You wouldn't spoil the fun?"

"It may have been Youth," returned his companion, "but it sounded
more like the end of the world. It was a little too much!"

A bevy of shop-girls came bustling forth from a gallery exit.

"Rah! rah! rah!" they mimicked, whereupon the cry was answered by
a hundred throats as the doors belched forth the football players
and their friends. Out they came, tumbling, pushing, jostling;
greeting scowls and smiles with grins of insolent good-humor. In
their hands were decorated walking-sticks and flags, ragged and
tattered as if from long use in a heavy gale. Dignified old
gentlemen dived among them in pursuit of top-hats; hysterical
matrons hustled daughters into carriages and slammed the doors.

"Wuxtry! Wuxtry!" shrilled the newsboys. "Full account of the big
game!"

A youth with a ridiculous little hat and heliotrope socks dashed
into the street, where, facing the crowd, he led a battle song of
his university. Policemen set their shoulders to the mob, but,
though they met with no open resistance, they might as well have
tried to dislodge a thicket of saplings. To-night football was
king.

Out through the crowd came a score of deep-chested young men