"But on this particular night--that I was telling you about," he resumed unhappily, "I had a sort of a feeling somehow that I'd like to go to the dance. It isn't always easy, you know," he confided with unexpected ingenuousness. "After the long day's work, I mean, with your back broken and your arms sprained, to come in and round up your own hot tub and your own shaving things and your own supper and the evening clothes you haven't even seen for six months. And I forgot the supper," he smiled faintly. "We haven't any woman at the house just now. But after you get to the dance you don't [13] mind!" he brightened transiently. "It's so bright and sweet-smelling! So many lights and colors! And so many funny dresses! And the music certainly is bully! And then all of a sudden at some silly hour like eleven o'clock everything shuts down and you have to go home! Why you'd only just come! Just got into your step, I mean! Just met the girls you wanted to meet! Just begun to laugh! Just begun to fool! That's the trouble with college parties," he frowned. "They're so darn institutional! No hanging round afterwards to forage in the kitchen and help put the house to bed, no nice jolly dawdling about on the front steps to look at the moon, no funny, bumpy walk home through a plowed field with a girl in high-heeled shoes and a lace tidy over her head! Just _zip!_ Like that! 'Eleven o'clock! Everybody _get out!_' All that fun and prettiness and everything snuffed out like a sour candle just because some old dame wants to go to bed! It's too--it's too abrupt!" said the boy. "So you felt?" prodded the man. _"Felt?"_ cried the boy. "Why at five [14] minutes of eleven I felt so _fit_ I could have run nine miles to help put out a fire. But at eleven I was so mad I'd have run twenty just to start one!" "So what _did_ you do?" said the man.