"Yale Victory Dance" the poster shouted to Vag in big blue letters as he loped down the entry steps on his way to the Pro. He crossed the courtyard and waded through several piles of leaves before the proclamation reached his inner self, already plagued by calculations of punch bowl capacity. Several steps further and he was saying to himself, over and over, "Yale Victory Dance." Several steps more and he stopped dead, thunderstruck. Yale victory indeed.

Vag stooped way down, touched his fists to his shoclaces, and then straightened with a jump. "Harvard!" he called--to the green bags going to class who didn't turn around; to the gray flannels coming back from Chipp's who just waved and shifted their bundles. Vag gathered up a handful of leaves, started forward, one-two, stopped, spun and then punted over the nearest convertible. The leaves scattered across the canvas but before they were still, Vag was off down Mt. Auburn on the run, leaping to touch the magenia flags with his fingertips. "Har--vard!" he called to the clear New England sky, but it didn't blanch. The people didn't turn around, doors didn't fly open; the traffic light went casually from green to yellow. "Har--vard," Vag called once again, and then slowed to a walk. Doesn't anybody care? he wondered.

Pushing into the Pro, he browsed among the potato chips and hefted a trial bottle of Bacardi. "The point is," one of the customers was saying, "that the game ends with the whistle. Win or lose, come over to my room after it's over and break into the punch. You don't really believe in all this, do you?" Vag put down the rum tenderly and slipped out into the sunlight. Was The Game just something to sit through before the party?

Vag thought again of the blue poster and decided on a different tack. Taking a tremendous breath, he hollered "Yale Wins Today!" and ran along the brick sidewalks as the yell boomed back at him from the walls. Green bags turned slowly and stared at him; the gray flannels glared. This time the people turned around and blocked his way; as he crossed the street, all the cars seemed to leap at him. There was some spirit after all. Vag jumped back quickly, but with a smile on his face. Hitching up his tie, he walked confidently back toward the Pro. The Harvard-Yale rivalry was still around--he would drink to it, after The Game.