Page 90 - 1930 Hartridge

TEnPDRRETMDRE5 At Noon
Silence hovers over the seemingly slumbering building. Not a sound breaks the hush of the empty corridors. From behind the closed doors come muffled voices; voices all but inarticulate with anticipation.
A bell clangs loudly through the still atmosphere. Then doors are burst open; the muffled voices rise to a shrill and piercing level; a wild and terrible stampede hurls itself in the direction of a singularly small and unpretentious table in the center of the lower hall. Wild shouts are bandied back and forth during this onslaught. Frenzied cries of “I shall get that letter or die,” and “if my allowance does not arrive today—” are hurled over the heads of the multitude. Books are dropped and trampled under foot; friends are pushed ruthlessly aside and passed by; teachers are stepped upon. These may wait, but the mail never.
If one has never seen enacted the drama of the stock exchange, he has only to stand a few feet away from this mail table on any day in the week, and there he will witness all the feverish expectancy, the desperate expressions of frustrated hope, the tears, the wild joy of triumph, the
smiling complacency that only too truly represent the proceedings of that famous exchange. It is a fearful sight, and one that should he wit­ nessed only by our closest intimates.
There is a word which I should like to add, lest we be misunder­ stood: we are all friends; we are particularly fond of each other. And although the veracity of this statement may be questioned, and although we push, kick—yea, even strike whoever be next us, yet this apparent hostility soon recedes into the past, we forget, we join arms in renewed
friendship, we pass serenely on to the day’s next adventure.
C. L., ’30.
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