Vag turned away from the crowd and went back into the House. Back up in the entry he found two parties going and there was the usual round of hellos, did-you-knows, a drink or two, and the many-sided isolation of too many asserted people at one party. In his room there still was the noise of the cheers from the street and the band fading past his window. It wasn't long before he was at his desk again, shuffling pages in an open history book. It was five o'clock on a fall Saturday afternoon, and the team had won a game, and all afternoon he had yelled as loudly as he could and now he felt like being quiet.

The party across the hall was breaking up. There was a long cheer for both teams, a glass shattered and someone was knocking on his door. The tall guy from the south was there with one arm around a very good-looking blonde, and the other had a bottle in it. Vag agreed that it was a great game and that this year's line was the greatest collection of guys since the Blocks of Granite. As the people waltzed out of the room across the way Vag refused the bottle and began to be irritated by the noise. Down the hall, the other party had broken into "Soldiers Field" and the guy upstairs had his Cocktail Music going full blast. Although it seemed to slow up the guy from the south, Vag turned down the bottle again and couldn't get back behind the closed door fast enough.

He'd begun noticing odd things about halfway through the game. The way he couldn't relax with everyone else after the star halfback limped off the other side of the field, and the way he wondered whether the back would go to class Monday, and most of all whether he'd have to be banged up again before he got his letter. On the way back from the game he watched lots of things he never saw before: the foolishness of an empty stadium, the sad looks on the peddlers who got stuck with left-over pennants, the way the House looked on a Saturday evening when the windows seem to be having a party.

Back in the room, Vag guessed that the only thing was dinner and a movie. On the way down he stopped in front of a fresh, young party, looked at his watch and kept going. In the dining hall he sat down and read the scores while the talk turned toward the elections.