The familiar symptoms had assailed him, and automatically he reacted to prevent their unmanning him. Girls, generically, had been mentioned by no one, and he introduced the topic without prelude, stating at the top of his voice that he hated every last thing about ’em. Then, not waiting for Elsie to greet him, not even appearing to be aware of her approach, or of her existence, he ran across the room, shouting, “Hay, there, Mister!” and hurled himself against a boy whose back was toward him. Rebounding, he dashed upon another, bumping into him violently, with the same cry of “Hay, there, Mister!” and went careening on, from boy to boy, repeating the bellow with the bumping as he went. Such easy behaviour on the part of the host immediately dispersed that formal reticence which characterizes the early moments of most children’s parties; the other boys fell in with Laurence’s idea and began to plunge about the room, bumping one another with a glad disregard of little girls who unfortunately got in their way. “Hay, there, Mister!” was the favoured cry, shouted as loudly as possible; and the bumping was as vigorous as the slogan. Falls were many and uproarious; annoyed little girls were upset; furniture also fell; the noise became glorious; and thus Laurence Coy’s party was a riot almost from the start. * * * * * Now when boys at a party get this mob mood going, the state of mind of the little girls is warrantably that of grown ladies among drunken men. There is this difference, of course: that the adult ladies leave the place and go home as soon as they can extricate themselves, whereas the little girls are incapable of even imagining such a course of action; they cannot imagine leaving a party before the serving of “refreshments,” at the earliest. For that matter, children of both sexes sometimes have a miserable time at a party yet remain to the bitter end for no reason except that their minds are not equal to the conception of a departure. A child who of his own impulse leaves a party before it is over may be set down as either morbid or singularly precocious—he may be a genius. When the bumping and bellowing broke out at Laurence’s party, most of the little girls huddled discontentedly close to the walls or in corners, where they were joined by those who had been overturned; and these last were especially indignant as they smoothed down their rumpled attire. It cannot be said, however, that the little girls reduced the general clamour; on the contrary, they increased it by the loudest criticism.