Of All Things Part 11

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Noisy bond-salesman in back of room stands up on chair and yells 'Yea!'"]

"Klung goes around right end for a gain of two yards," is the next message from the front.

The bond-salesman shouts "Yea!"

"How about that fumble?" shouts every one else.

The announcer goes behind the scenes to talk it over with the man who works the Punch-and-Judy, and emerges, smiling.

"In the play preceding the one just announced," he says, "Gumble fumbled and the ball was recovered by Breakwater, who ran ten yards for a touchdown--"

Pandemonium! The bond-salesman leads himself in a cheer. The witty man says, "Nothing to it."

There is comparative quiet again, and every one lights up the old pipes that have gone out.

The announcer steps forward with his hand raised as if to regulate traffic.

"There was a mistake in the announcement just made," he says pleasantly. "In place of 'touchdown' read 'touchback.' The ball is now in play on the 20-yard line, and Kleenwell has just gone through center for three yards."

By this time no one in the audience has any definite idea of where the ball is or who has it. On the board it is hovering between midfield and second base.

"On the next play Legly punts--"

"Block that punt! Block that punt!" warns the bond-salesman, as if it were the announcer who was opposing Legly.

"Sit down, you poor fis.h.!.+" is the consensus of opinion.

"Legly punts to Klung on the latter's 25-yard line, where the first period ends."

And so it goes throughout the game; the announcer calling out gains and the dummy football registering corresponding losses; Messrs. A.T.

Blevitch and L.H. Yank being wanted on the telephone in the middle of forward pa.s.ses; the noisy person in the back of the room yelling "Yea"

on the slightest provocation and being hushed up at each outbreak; and every one wondering what the quarterback meant by calling for the plays he did.

In smaller cities, where only a few are gathered together to hear the results, things are not done on such an elaborate scale. The dummy gridiron and the dummy announcer are done away with and the ten or a dozen rooters cl.u.s.ter about the news ticker, most of them with the intention of watching for just a few minutes and then going home or back to the office. And they always wait for just one more play, s.h.i.+fting from one foot to the other, until the game is over.

About a ticker only the three or four lucky ones can see the tape. The rest have to stand on tip-toe and peer over the shoulders of the man in front. They don't care. Some one will always read the results aloud, just as a woman will read aloud the cut-ins at the movies. The one who is doing the reading usually throws in little advance predictions of his own when the news is slow in coming, with the result that those in the back get the impression that the team has at least a "varied attack," effecting at times a field goal and a forward pa.s.s in the same play.

A critical period in the game, as it comes dribbling in over the ticker, looks something like this:

YALE.PRINCTON.GAME....CHEKFMKL.......KLUNG.GOES.

AROUND.LEFT.END.FOR.A.GAIN.OF.YDS.....A.FORWARD.

Pa.s.s.TWEEDY.TO.KLUNG.NETS.....

(Ticker stops ticking).

Murmurs of "Come on, there, wha.s.ser matter?"

Some one suggests that the pa.s.s was illegal and that the whole team has been arrested.

The ticker clears its throat. Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r

The ticker stabs off a line of dots and begins:

"BOWIE.FIRST.RACE..MEASLES. FIRST..13.60..AND..

6.00.WHORTLEBERRY.SCND.PLACE.3.80..EMMA GOLDMAN, THIRD..TIME.1.09.4.5.NON.START.PROCRASTINATION.

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN"

A few choice remarks are pa.s.sed in the privacy of the little circle, to just the effect that you would suspect.

A newcomer elbows his way in and says: "What's the good word? Any score yet?" and some one replies: "Yes. The score now stands 206 to 0 in favor of Notre Dame." This grim pleasantry is expressive of the sentiment of the group toward newcomers. It is each man for himself now.

Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!

"Here she comes, now!" whispers the man who is hanging over the gla.s.s news terminal, reading aloud: "Yale-Princeton-Game-Second Quarter (Good-night, what became of that forward pa.s.s in the first quarter?) Yale's-ball-in-mid-field-Hornung-takes-ball-around-left-end-making-it first-down-Tinfoil-drops-back-for-a-try-at-a-field-goal.

(Oh, boy! Come on, now!)"

"Why the deuce do they try a field goal on the first down?" asks a querulous graduate-strategist. "Now, what he ought to do is to keep a-plugging there at tackle, where he has been going--"

Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!

"Bet he missed it!" offers some one with vague gambling instincts.

"..INS.NEEDLES..1-1/4..ZINC..CON..4-1/2..WASHN..

THE CENSUS.OFFICE.ESTIMATES.THE CONSUMPTION.OF COTTON.WASTE.IN.THE.MFGR.OF.AUTOMBLE.HOODS.AS.

66.991.059 LBS..INCLUDING.LINTERS.AND.HULL FIBER.."

And just then some one comes in from the outside, all fresh and disagreeably cheery, and wants to know what the score is and if there have been many forward pa.s.ses tried and who is playing quarter for Yale, and if any one has got a cigarette.

It is really just the same sort of program as obtains in the big college club, only on a small scale. They are all watching the same game and they are all wis.h.i.+ng the same thing and before their respective minds' eyes is the picture of the same stadium, with the swarm of queen bees and drones clinging to its sides. And every time that you, who are one of the cold and lucky ones with a real ticket, see a back break loose for a long run and hear the explosion of hoa.r.s.e shouts that follows, you may count sixty and then listen to hear the echo from every big city in the country where the old boys have just got the news.

XV

A LITTLE DEBIT IN YOUR TONNEAU

Motorists, as a cla.s.s, are not averse to public discussion of their troubles. In fact, one often wonders how some of them ever get time to operate their cars, so tied up do they seem to be with these little experience-meetings, at which one man tells, with appropriate gestures, how he ran out of gas between Springfield and Worcester, while another gives a perfect bit of character acting to show just how the policeman on the outskirts of Trenton behaved.

But there seems to be one phase of the motorist's trials which he never bares to the public. He will confide to you just how bad the gasoline was that he bought at the country garage; he will make it an open secret that he had four blow-outs on the way home from the country-club; but of one of his most poignant sorrows he never speaks.

I refer to the guests who snuggle in his tonneau.

Probably more irritations have arisen from the tonneau than from the tires, day in and day out, and yet you never hear a man say, "Well, I certainly had an unholy crew of camp-followers out with me to-day--friends of my wife." Say what you will, there is an innate delicacy in the average motorist, or such repression could not be.

Consider the types of tonneau guests. They are as generic and fundamental as the spectrum and you will find them in Maine and New Mexico at the same time.

There is the first, or major, cla.s.sification, which may be designated as the Financially Paralyzed. Persons in this cla.s.s, on stepping into your machine, automatically transfer all their money troubles to you.

You become, for the duration of the ride, whether it be to the next corner or to Palm Beach, their financial guardian, and any little purchases which are incidental to the trip (such as three meals a day) belong to your list of running expenses. There seems to be something about the motion of the automobile that inhibits their ability to reach for their purses, and they become, if you want to be poetical about it, like clay in the hands of the potter. Whither thou goest they will go; thy check-book is their check-book. It is just like the one great, big, jolly family--of which you are the father and backer.