Cinder Path Tales

168 CINDER-PATH TALES Bah! Thirty years have not reconciled me to this gentry, with the addled brains and brazen throats. Most of the collegemen are gathered in little groups, around which the crowds ebb and flow in a surging tide.That itstrongest current is through the swinging doorof the bar-room cannotbe denied, nor that it shows signs of the source from which it sprang. There are at least three grains of talk toone of listen, which is the regular dose,though the athletespull the proportion down. They are, as usual, quietest of all. They have developed other muscles than those of the tongue; and yet even they area bit talka­ tive to-night, and have an unmistakably festive air about them. After monthsof preparation and weeks of strict training, when rigid rules prohibit, and all the pleasant things oflife seem labelled " Keep off the grass," there is a maddening pleasure in being free again, — freeto taste that favoritedish, palatable but indigestible; free to inhale the fragrance ofa good cigar; free to watch the hands of the clock swing into the smallhours ;free, as Harry Gardner expresses it, " to do as you darn please once more." For thosewho have lost there is the ne­ cessity ofdrowning sorrow, and it is certainly