Ten minutes later the manager himself conducted the men of the victorious eleven to their adjoining boxes, on the right. The great audience had had its collective eye upon those boxes and at the appearance of the men a great shout went up from pit and gallery that sent the cold shivers up and down the spines of the already nervous actors behind the gold and scarlet curtain.
"There's the Count," some one shouted.
"Where? Yes!"
And the short heavy person with the baby face who had been thus honored by selection from among his fellows arose in the box and bowed. The throng cheered again and after that each man in turn was called for and each man rose and bowed.
During the clamor attendant upon this official welcome of the victors, a dozen men, quite as tall, quite as broad and quite as serene of countenance, were ushered into the corresponding boxes across the house. Their appearance was not noticed, for the entire audience had turned in its seats to observe the men of Michigan, proud in the triumph that had come to them. But, finally, after each man had been given his salvo of applause some one noted the men on the other side.
"There's Cornell," was cried.
And the audience, to its everlasting credit, and after the fashion of youth's wild way, repeated for their good cheer the welcome they had given the fellows of the maize and blue. The vanquished had hardly expected the ovation they received. A football man is not a modest creature as a general rule, but in this instance it must in justice be recorded that several of the brawny giants in the left hand box withdrew behind the curtains.
Their names, however, were known to the throng below them and were called.
Finally, unable by modesty to end the uproar, they rose, one by one and bowed, and the feeling engendered that moment has never died, but lives in the hearts of Cornell men to-day, who are wont in reminiscent mood to refer to it as the "finest show of fellowship on record."
A youth with a high tenor voice, who could not be distinguished from the rear of the theatre started the chorus of "The Yellow and the Blue." The boys around him took it up and the citizenry of Detroit, in the balcony, were treated to such a song recital as they had never before heard. In the midst of it the discovery was suddenly made by some keen youth in the gallery that one man was missing from the right hand boxes. He nudged his companion. The word was passed along the rail. Then, with a suddenness that caused the women in the balcony to start with little screams, one name was shrieked above the clamor of the lower floor:—