"Oh, it takes all sorts of men to make a world," says Dempster, pushing his way through the crowd, while E. E. and I followed, with that child a-dragging after us.
We went at the rate of three feet in as many minutes, and that wrestler's voice was wrangling over us all the time. If the angels caught one sentence, I'm sure they must have clapped their wings to their ears and left the hub to take care of itself.
LXXIV.
THUNDERS OF MUSIC.
WELL, at last we crowded and fought our way into the Coliseum, which was pretty well filled up when we got through the entrance.
It was a sight, I must say that. Before us was a whole mountain-side of benches, rising one above another till you could hardly see the end of them—benches, benches, benches—crowded down and running over with people, all in a state of bewildering commotion—humming, whispering, and rustling together like ten millions of bees in a mammoth hive.
You never saw so many female women together in your born days. Think of it, thousands and thousands with crimson books fluttering in their hands, as if each woman had caught a great red butterfly and was holding him out by the wings. All these female women were rigged out in gorgeous dresses, rustling, moving, and flaming with all sorts of colors, like a hillside covered with gorgeous flowers, broken up with a dash of blackness now and then, as if a thunder-cloud had settled down amongst them. These black patches were the musicians, the flower garden was the singers—almost all female women, with fans, and voices, and red books in motion.
Below were the people, crowded together by the acre, all jolly, smiling, and looking as if Boston were ready to burst her tire and whirl on her own bare hub, with all her spokes a-whizzing.
Flags streamed and blazed on the walls, the roof, and around the pillars. All the stars in the skies seemed to have been torn down, scattered on a blue ground, and hung over that great building. It was a grand sight, I must say that—grand, but hubby.