over again,
unconscious that it was the first time in his life he had ever done so.
Huntington, the sedate Huntington, was cavorting like a two-year-old,
yet Hamlen saw nothing incongruous in his conduct. Cosden was so hoarse
that his cries resembled a wheezy calliope, yet they were sweet music in
Hamlen's ears. Harvard had won, Philip had won, he had won!

At the station a crowd of undergraduates were singing hilariously:

"_Bring the bacon home, John,
We cannot eat it all.
We sometimes got a taste of it
When you and I were small.
But now you bring it home, John,
In springtime and in fall.
It seems an awful waste of it,
We cannot eat it all._"

There was the hectic scramble for seats on the special train. Snatches
of other songs came from here and there, and spasmodic cheering; but
gradually the excitement settled down into the quieter calm of satisfied
accomplishment. It was an orderly crowd which deserted the train at
Back Bay, but the men bunched on the platform, before they separated,
and again burst into song. The jibes were forgotten, the boastings
hushed. These had their place only in the first expressions of exultant
victory. A deeper sentiment seized the celebrating host, which was
expressed with uncovered heads:

"_Fair Harvard! thy sons to thy jubilee throng,
And with blessings surrender thee o'er,
By these festival rites, from the age which is past
To the age which is waiting before._"

Hamlen watched them in silence, touched with a new emotion by the sound
of the words, familiar enough, but which now took on a different
meaning. Huntington was right: it was not a boat-race he had just
witnessed, it was not the celebration of a victory over Yale, it was a
"festival rite," consecrating anew to its Alma Mater that brotherhood to
which he belonged, in grateful acknowledgment of the character and power
developed beneath her beneficent influence which placed within its reach
"the Earth and all that's in it."

* * * * *

XXXI

* * * * *

In July, commercial stagnation increased, and the machinery of business
which before had creaked dismally in its daily routine now groaned aloud
in its travail; and the pity was that the conditions which caused it
were artificially created. There was capital enough, but the banks
hoarded it against possible contingencies; the crops were heavy, but it
was suic