side out. Blaring noises from the passing
cars confused the Professor.

The shaft of the umbrella swung violently around and knocked the
silk hat from Professor Irving's head. His white hair was caught by
the wind. Lashed in another direction, the shaft now struck the
Professor's glasses, and they flew away. Now he could see little or
nothing. He became bewildered.

Great glaring headlights broke upon him, passed him, and then
immediately other glaring lights flared up toward him out of the
sheets of water. He couldn't see because of his lost glasses and
because of the stinging rain. He rushed between two cars. He slipped....

The chimes on the Metropolitan Tower rang out, in wails of wild sound,
the half-hour after four.

* * * * *

The attendance that evening at the annual banquet of the New York
alumni of Huntington College exceeded all previous records. The
drive for two million five hundred thousand dollars was on. It was a
small college, but as Daniel Webster said of Dartmouth, there were
those who loved it.

The east ballroom of the hotel was well filled with diners.
Recollections of college days were shouted across tables and over
intervening aisles. There was a million still to raise: but old
Huntington would put it across! They'd gotten out more of the older
men, the men with money, than had ever been seen before at an alumni
dinner.

The income on one million would go into better salaries for the
professors and other teachers. They'd been shamefully underpaid--men
who'd been on the faculty twenty to thirty years getting two thousand!
Well, Huntington College had now a new president, one of the boys of
twenty years ago. Yes sir, things were different. It was in the air.

In the midst of the dinner course, the toastmaster rapped loudly
with the gavel for attention. It was hard to obtain quiet.

"Men," said the toastmaster, and there was a curious note in his
voice, "I ask your absolute silence. Middleton, whom you all know is
one of the editorial staff of the _Sphere_, has just come in. He can
stay only a few minutes. He came especially to tell you something."

A man standing behind the toastmaster stepped into the toastmaster's
place. He was in business clothes, a sharp contrast to the rest of
the diners. He was loudly applauded. He raised his right hand and
shook his head.

"Boys," he said, "I've got a tragic piece of news for you--for those
of you who were in col