Supper was forgotten while Henry Seeley wondered whether he really wanted to go to New Haven to see his boy play.  Many of his old friends and classmates would be there and he did not wish to meet them.

And it stung him to the quick as he reflected: 

“I should be very happy to see him win, but—­but to see him whipped!  I couldn’t brace and comfort him.  And supposing it breaks his heart to be whipped as it has broken mine?  No, I won’t let myself think that.  I’m a poor Yale man and a worse father, but I couldn’t stand going up there to-day.”

Even more humiliating was the thought that he would shrink from asking leave of the city editor.  Saturday was not his “day off,” and he so greatly hated to ask favors at the office, that the possibility of being rebuffed was more than he was willing to face.

Into his unhappy meditations broke a boisterous hail: 

“Diogenes Seeley, as I live.  Why, you old rascal, I thought you were dead or something.  Glad I didn’t get foolish and go to bed.  Here, waiter, get busy.”

Seeley was startled, and he looked much more distressed than rejoiced as he lumbered from his table to grasp the outstretched hand of a classmate.  The opera-hat of this Mr. Richard Giddings was cocked at a rakish angle, his blue eye twinkled good cheer and youthful hilarity, and his aspect was utterly care-free.

“How are you, Dick?” said Seeley, with an unusual smile which singularly brightened his face.  “You don’t look a day older than when I last saw you.  Still cutting coupons for a living?”

“Oh, money is the least of my worries,” gayly rattled Mr. Giddings.  “Been doing the heavy society act to-night, and on my way home found I needed some sauerkraut and beer to tone up my jaded system.  By Jove, Harry, you’re as gray as a badger.  This newspaper game must be bad for the nerves.  Lots of fellows have asked me about you.  Never see you at the University Club, nobody sees you anywhere.  Remarkable how a man can lose himself right here in New York.  Still running the Chronicle, I suppose.”

“I’m still in the old shop, Dick,” replied Seeley, glad to be rid of this awkward question.  “But I work nearly all night and sleep most of the day, and am like a cog in a big machine that never stops grinding.”

“Shouldn’t do it.  Wears a man out,” and Mr. Giddings sagely nodded his head.  “Course you are going up to the game to-day.  Come along with me.  Special car with a big bunch of your old pals inside.  They’ll be tickled to death to find I’ve dug you out of your hole.  Hello!  Is that this morning’s paper?  Let me look at the sporting page.  Great team at New Haven, they tell me.  What’s the latest odds?  I put up a thousand at five to three last week and am looking for some more easy money.”

The alert eye of the volatile Richard Giddings swept down the New Haven dispatch like lightning.

With a grievous outcry he smote the table and shouted: