"I—I didn't expect to be quite as democratic as that," the girl said.
"Well, I'll try to see that the more intimate personal demonstrations are spared you," her escort reassured her.
Presently they left the train, and passing down the platform they joined the crowd that was now forcing its slow course along the inclosed runway which led to the Polo Grounds. There was considerable jostling, much talking and laughter, deep trampling and shuffling of many feet. At last Smith reached the window before which for some five minutes he stood in line.
"Of course I could have gotten box seats," he explained as he purchased two score cards; "but I wanted you to get this thing in its entirety."
"You are the doctor," replied Miss Maitland, cheerfully; at which form of acquiescence her companion regarded her in such surprise that she burst into a laugh.
"I heard that just now," she confessed; "and it seemed to fit the case.
You know you are really prescribing this game as a cure for acute
Bostonitis."
"Right!" said he, laughing, "I fancy I was. But I didn't mean to be unpleasantly Aesculapian."
"You weren't," she said. "And do you know, I think you were correct. Even if you didn't consciously prescribe this as a remedy, I myself admit—or I almost admit—that I was feeling the need of a tonic a little different from any I had ever tried at home. And I believe this is it."
Surely it was. They reached their seats, which they found back of first base, and sat down between neighbors of uncommon parts. Next to Helen was a large red man of Hibernian extraction, with a long upper lip tamed but little by civilization or by razor; on his head he wore a dilapidated cloth cap; he was, to appearances, driver for an ice company or a brewery.
At Smith's elbow was a small, black-haired Jew with a pock-marked face. In front of them were four people who could have been the shipping clerk for a hardware house, his fiancée, who presided conceivably over a switchboard in some uptown hotel, a gentleman who looked like a college professor and who was probably night clerk in a drug store, and lastly a chunky and well-fed person who, from his turning at once to the cotton reports, could probably be put down as holding some responsible position in a Wall Street house. The farther the eye strayed, the more motley became the array, the more difficult any generalization.