"Don't she like it?" called an ungallant if witty youth away at the back of the crowd. There was a little feminine shriek, then a peal of laughter in which the throng joined. The police in the lobby were completely at a loss. No man was to be arrested, their commissioner had instructed them. But they gripped their clubs nervously; longing to leap into that seething maelstrom of manhood uncontrolled and wield them to the best purpose. A policeman is born with a hatred for loud-voiced youth--particularly if the youth wear good clothes of trim and fashionable cut. So the policemen there in the lobby, disarmed by the strict injunction of their chief, were as helpless as babes, and like babes they drew down their mouths and gripped tighter that which was within their clutch. Now and again, however, one, bolder than his fellows, and moved perhaps by a spirit of chivalry would shout gruffly:-- "Remember there are ladies in this crowd, you fellows." "Sure," some one in the throng would yell. Finally the manager appeared and stationing a man at each of the two other doors flung them back and relieved the pressure at the one. This stroke of genius resulted in a quick emptying of the brilliant lobby and an equally sudden congestion at the tops of the aisles where the ushers in their dark green uniforms were conducting the audience to the seats below amid the confusion resulting from exchanged coupons, balcony tickets presented on the lower floor and the presence in the crowd of "general admissions" who demanded their rights to a seat anywhere in the house. The manager, a tall young man with a black mustache and black eyes darted here, there, through the crowd, thrusting aside the men whose money he had taken, and seeking by every means at his command to wrest order out of chaos. It was after eight o'clock before the score of ushers were by circumstance permitted to emerge from under the burden of their responsibilities and creep away down-stairs to the smoking room where, flinging themselves on the long low lounges in sheer fatigue, they berated the patrons of the house roundly and condemned each and every one to the hottest depths of a boiling hot perdition. Ten minutes later the manager himself conducted the men of the victorious eleven to their adjoining boxes, on the right. The great audience had had its collective eye upon those boxes and at the appearance of the men a great shout went up from pit and gallery that sent the cold shivers up and down the spines of the already nervous actors behind the gold and scarlet curtain. "There's the Count," some one shouted. "Where? Yes!" And the short heavy person with the baby face who had been thus honored by selection from among his fellows arose in the box and bowed. The throng cheered again and after that each man in turn was called for and each man rose and bowed.