icate it to the young women, who,
in turn, communicate it to the said elders--and possibly the indirect
method is the surer! I visited a university town in order to witness a
match of the highest importance. Unfortunately, and yet fortunately, my
whole view of it was affected by a mere nothing--a trifle which the
newspapers dealt with in two lines.

When I reached the gates of the arena in the morning, to get a glimpse
of a freshmen's match, an automobile was standing thereat. In the
automobile was a pile of rugs, and sticking out of the pile of rugs in
an odd, unnatural, horizontal way was a pair of muddy football boots.
These boots were still on the feet of a boy, but all the rest of his
unconscious and smashed body was hidden beneath the rugs. The automobile
vanished, and so did my peace of mind. It seemed to me tragic that that
burly infant under the rugs should have been martyrized at a poor little
morning match in front of a few sparse hundreds of spectators and tens
of thousands of unresponsive empty benches. He had not had even the
glory and meed of a great multitude's applause. When I last inquired
about him, at the end of the day, he was still unconscious, and that was
all that could be definitely said of him; one heard that it was his
features that had chiefly suffered in the havoc, that he had been
defaced. If I had not happened to see those muddy football boots
sticking out, I should have heard vaguely of the accident, and remarked
philosophically that it was a pity, but that accidents would occur, and
there would have been the end of my impression. Only I just did happen
to see those muddy boots sticking out.

[Illustration: THE SENSE OF A MIGHTY AND CULMINATING EVENT SHARPENED THE
AIR]

When we came away from the freshmen's match, the charming roads of the
town, bordered by trees and by the agreeable architecture of mysterious
clubs, were beginning to be alive and dangerous with automobiles and
carriages, and pretty girls and proud men, and flags and flowers, and
colored favors and shoutings. Salutes were being exchanged at every
yard. The sense of a mighty and culminating event sharpened the air. The
great inn was full of jollity and excitement, and the reception-clerks
thereof had the negligent mien of those who know that every bedroom
is taken and every table booked. The club (not one of the mysterious
ones, but an ingenuous plain club of patriarchs who had once been young
in the university and were