College stories; Sports stories; Yale University -- Juvenile fiction
"I'll dye it blue if that will help any," may be the next message.
Fifty men are angling at a time and the lines sometimes get crossed.
It is all great fun for the girls who enter into the spirit of the
thing and are not disturbed, after the first shock, at the ardent
messages that are swung in front of their faces.
Of course, every one cannot angle for love messages in the pit
because, although the front of the gallery resembles a grape-hung
garden wall with the clustering heads, there are several hundreds
behind the first row. They content themselves with throwing confetti
and paper streamers into the pit and boxes until there is a jungle
of it below, through which a late-comer must literally break his
way. The floor itself is covered with confetti and cards whereon are
printed in prose and verse amazing praises for the class in the upper
gallery, recounting what that class will do when it becomes a Junior
class two years later and shall have the position of honor.
On this particular night everything went well in the gallery until
the program was half over. Then trouble broke loose, for all
legitimate means for attracting attention had been exhausted. At the
moment the quartet was delivering itself of a touching melody and
quiet was temporarily established even in the gallery. The tenor,
striving for one of his highest notes, suddenly broke off with a
violent sneeze. Some one in the gallery had thrown a tissue paper wad
of snuff against the scenery behind the quartet. The paper broke and
the snuff, light as feathers, permeated the air.
The bass singer of the quartet immediately followed the tenor with
a resounding bellow at which the audience, not knowing the cause,
burst into roars of laughter. But soon they changed from laughing
to sneezing, for handfuls of the snuff were now pitched over the
gallery rail by the offenders, and the coughing and sneezing became
general. No one was exempt. Dignified chaperons, pretty girls and
their escorts joined in the chorus. The quartet retired in confusion,
holding onto their noses.
"Stop it, stop it!"
"Get out, Freshmen," yelled the guards, but so thick was the press in
the gallery that the guards were powerless to get at the offenders.
To cap the climax, a Freshman emptied about a bushel of fine,
powderlike confetti on the heads of the people below, while still
another opened a pillow of fine down feathers which, dropping to the
pit of the theater in a cloud, covered the gowns of the ladies. The
feathers insinuated themselves down the necks of everyone.
Having worked their last indignity, two score of the Freshmen tumbled
down the gallery stairs like a hurricane, and broke pell-mell for the
street with the guard after them. Some punches were delivered, but
most of the Freshmen escaped, yelling, with whole skins.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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