At the far end of the room Joel March played with his steak and tried to delude himself into thinking he was eating.

He felt rather upset, and weak in the joints, and as for the lad's stomach it had revolted at sight of the very first egg.

But luckily the last meal before a game has little effect one way or the other upon the partaker, since he is already keyed up, mentally and physically, to a certain pitch, and nothing short of cold poison can alter it.
In the streets below, for blocks in all directions, the crowds surged up and down, and shouts for Harwell and yells for Yates arose like challenges in the afternoon air.

Friends met who had not done so for years, enemies accorded enemies bows of recognition ere they remembered their enmity.

The deep blue and the deeper crimson passed and counterpassed, brushed and fluttered side by side, and lighted up the little college city till it looked like a garden of roses and violets.
And everywhere, over all, was the tensity that ever reigns before a battle.
The voices of the ticket speculator and of the merchant of "Offish'l Score Cards" were heard upon every side.