that's it," says I, just disgusted: "Well, I hope he'll get through
with his wrestling before we come this way again. To haul religion and
force prayers into such a crowd as this, is making a farce of
Christianity. We have churches for such things, and the calm of a holy
Sabbath set aside for the service of God. Who has time to think of such
things here?"

"Oh, it takes all sorts of men to make a world," says Dempster, pushing
his way through the crowd, while E. E. and I followed, with that child
a-dragging after us.

We went at the rate of three feet in as many minutes, and that
wrestler's voice was wrangling over us all the time. If the angels
caught one sentence, I'm sure they must have clapped their wings to
their ears and left the hub to take care of itself.

LXXIV.

THUNDERS OF MUSIC.

Well, at last we crowded and fought our way into the Coliseum, which was
pretty well filled up when we got through the entrance.

It was a sight, I must say that. Before us was a whole mountain-side of
benches, rising one above another till you could hardly see the end of
them--benches, benches, benches--crowded down and running over with
people, all in a state of bewildering commotion--humming, whispering,
and rustling together like ten millions of bees in a mammoth hive.

You never saw so many female women together in your born days. Think of
it, thousands and thousands with crimson books fluttering in their
hands, as if each woman had caught a great red butterfly and was holding
him out by the wings. All these female women were rigged out in gorgeous
dresses, rustling, moving, and flaming with all sorts of colors, like a
hillside covered with gorgeous flowers, broken up with a dash of
blackness now and then, as if a thunder-cloud had settled down amongst
them. These black patches were the musicians, the flower garden was the
singers--almost all female women, with fans, and voices, and red books
in motion.

Below were the people, crowded together by the acre, all jolly, smiling,
and looking as if Boston were ready to burst her tire and whirl on her
own bare hub, with all her spokes a-whizzing.

Flags streamed and blazed on the walls, the roof, and around the
pillars. All the stars in the skies seemed to have been torn down,
scattered on a blue ground, and hung over that great building. It was a
grand sight, I must say that--grand, but hubby.

It was the German day, Cousin Dempster said. England had had her tur