“Why, what did you expect? It was neither better nor worse than the common run of such things.”
“Well, but three parts of the crowd were boys.”
“So they are always—or nine times out of ten at any rate.”
“But there was no real fighting; at least, I only know I got none.”
“There isn't any real fighting, as you call it, nine times out of ten.”
“What is there, then?”
“Why, something of this sort. Five shopboys, or scouts' boys, full of sauciness, loitering at an out-of-the-way street corner. Enter two freshmen, full of dignity and bad wine. Explosion of inflammable material. Freshmen mobbed into High-street or Broad-street, where the tables are turned by a gathering of many more freshmen, and the mob of town boys quietly subsides, puts its hands in its pockets, and ceases to shout 'Town, town!' The triumphant freshmen march up and down for perhaps half an hour, shouting 'Gown, gown!' and looking furious, but not half sorry that the mob vanishes like mist at their approach. Then come the proctors, who hunt down, and break up the gown in some half-hour or hour. The 'town' again marches about in the ascendant, and mobs the scattered freshmen, wherever they can be caught in very small numbers.”
“But with all your chaff about freshmen, Captain, you were in it yourself to-night; come now.”
“Of course, I had to look after you two boys.”
“But you didn't know we were in when you came up?”