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on three sides it
was now assailed with remarkable ferocity.
It was a matter of wall meet wall in terrific rushes, during which lads
could feel their very hearts leaving them in the compress of friends and
foes. They on the outskirts upheld the honour of their classes by

squeezing into paper thickness the lungs of those of their fellows who
formed the centre of the melee
In some way it resembled a panic at a theatre.
The first lance-like attack of the Sophomores had been formidable, but
the Freshmen outnumbering their enemies and smarting from continual
Sophomoric oppression, had swarmed to the front like drilled
collegians and given the arrogant foe the first serious check of the year.
Therefore the tall Gothic windows which lined one side of the corridor
looked down upon as incomprehensible and enjoyable a tumult as
could mark the steps of advanced education. The Seniors and juniors
cheered themselves ill. Long freed from the joy of such meetings, their
only means for this kind of recreation was to involve the lower classes,
and they had never seen the victims fall to with such vigour and
courage. Bits of printed leaves, torn note-books, dismantled collars and
cravats, all floated to the floor beneath the feet of the warring hordes.
There were no blows; it was a battle of pressure. It was a deadly
pushing where the leaders on either side often suffered the most cruel
and sickening agony caught thus between phalanxes of shoulders with
friend as well as foe contributing to the pain.
Charge after charge of Freshmen beat upon the now compact and
organised Sophomores. Then, finally, the rock began to give slow way.
A roar came from the Freshmen and they hurled themselves in a frenzy
upon their betters.
To be under the gaze of the juniors and Seniors is to be in sight of all
men, and so the Sophomores at this important moment laboured with
the desperation of the half- doomed to stem the terrible Freshmen.
In the kind of game, it was the time when bad tempers came strongly to
the front, and in many Sophomores' minds a thought arose of the
incomparable insolence of the Freshmen. A blow was struck; an
infuriated Sophomore had swung an arm high and smote a Freshman.
Although it had seemed that no greater noise could be made by the
given numbers, the din that succeeded this manifestation surpassed

everything. The juniors and Seniors immediately set up an angry howl.
These veteran classes projected themselves into the middle of the fight,
buffeting everybody with small thought as to merit. This method of
bringing peace was as militant as a landslide, but they had much
trouble before they could separate the central clump of antagonists into
its parts. A score of Freshmen had cried out: "It was Coke. Coke
punched him. Coke." A dozen of them were tempestuously
endeavouring to register their protest against fisticuffs by means of an
introduction of more fisticuffs.
The upper classmen were swift, harsh and hard. "Come, now, Freshies,
quit it. Get back, get back, d'y'hear?" With a wrench of muscles they
forced themselves in front of Coke, who was being blindly defended by
his classmates from intensely earnest attacks by outraged Freshmen.
These meetings between the lower classes at the door of a recitation
room were accounted quite comfortable and idle affairs, and a blow
delivered openly and in hatred fractured a sharply defined rule of
conduct. The corridor was in a hubbub. Many Seniors and Juniors,
bursting from old and iron discipline, wildly clamoured that some
Freshman should be given the privilege of a single encounter with
Coke. The Freshmen themselves were frantic. They besieged the tight
and dauntless circle of men that encompassed Coke. None dared
confront the Seniors openly, but by headlong rushes at auspicious
moments they tried to come to quarters with the rings of dark-browed
Sophomores. It was no longer a festival, a game; it was a riot. Coke,
wild-eyed, pallid with fury, a ribbon of blood on his chin, swayed in the
middle of the mob of his classmates, comrades who waived the ethics
of the blow under the circumstance of being obliged as a corps to stand
against the scorn of the whole college, as well as against the
tremendous assaults of the Freshmen. Shamed by their own man, but
knowing full well the right time and the wrong time for a palaver of
regret and disavowal, this battalion struggled in the desperation of
despair. Once they were upon the verge of making unholy campaign
against the interfering Seniors. This fiery impertinence was the measure
of their state.

It was a critical moment in the play of the college. Four or five defeats
from the Sophomores during the fall had taught the Freshmen much.
They