n with it."
Garrison returned about a half hour before the time appointed for the
meeting. He found a small crowd of about a hundred individuals collected
in front of the building where the hall was situated, and on ascending
to the hall more of the same sort, mostly young men, choking the access
to it. They were noisy, and Garrison pushed his way through them with
difficulty. As he entered the place of meeting and took his seat among
the ladies, twenty had already arrived, the gang of young rowdies
recognized him and evinced this by the exclamation: "That's Garrison!"
The full significance of the crowd just without the hall did not seem to
have occurred to the man whom they had identified. He did not know that
they were the foam blown from the mouth of a great mob at the moment
filling the streets in the neighborhood of the building where he sat
with such serenity of spirit. His wife who had followed him from their
home saw what Garrison did not see. The crowd of a hundred had swelled
to thousands. It lay in a huge irregular cross, jammed in between the
buildings on Washington street, the head lowering in front of the
anti-slavery office, the foot reaching to the site where stood Joy
building, now occupied by the Rogers, the right arm stretching along
Court street to the Court House, and the left encircling the old State
House, City Hall and Post-office then, in a gigantic embrace. All hope
of urging her way through that dense mass was abandoned by Mrs.
Garrison, and a friend, Mr. John E. Fuller, escorted her to his home,
where she passed the night.

Meantime the atmosphere upstairs at the hall began to betoken a fast
approaching storm. The noises ominously increased on the landing just
outside. The door of the hall was swung wide open and the entrance
filled with rioters. Garrison, all unconscious of danger, walked over to
these persons and remonstrated in his grave way with them in regard to
the disturbance which they were producing, winding up with a
characteristic bit of pleasantry: "Gentlemen," said he, "perhaps you are
not aware that this is a meeting of the Boston _Female_ Anti-Slavery
Society, called and intended exclusively for _ladies_, and those only
who have been invited to address them. Understanding this fact you will
not be so rude and indecorous as to thrust your presence upon this
meeting." But he added, "If, _gentlemen_, any of you are _ladies_ in
disguise--why only apprise me of the fact, give me you