"Fool if you did," said Jack. "No time is ever convenient with me. Somehow or other I seem to be hard up all the time. Oh, you needn't laugh. I know I have rather more to spend than most fellows out here, but that doesn't help me a bit when I've spent it. You needn't grin at this nag either, you old monk, it hasn't been mine for some time. I had to give it to that robber Flynn, the livery-man, for his bill. Don't seem to have made much on the transaction, though, because now I have to hire the beast. Flynn has my horse, hang him, and somehow I've still got his bill." "There is no doubt about it, Rattleton," said the other; "you will be renowned as a philosopher some day. You keep discovering great truths all the time." "Are you going to the game?" asked Rattleton, turning the subject. "That would be a useless question to ask most men," said Varnum; "it is equally useless to ask me. Of course I am not." "Not?" exclaimed Jack. "Nonsense! You're not going to stay all by yourself here in Cambridge? Come now, old grind, do take a day off." "No," said Varnum, a little sadly, shaking his head; "I can't do it. I can't spare either the time or the money. Besides I have something on my hands that I can't drop just at present." "Bet I know," said Rattleton. "It is some of your confounded indigent kid business. Of course, that sort of thing is bully and I admire you for it, you know, and all that; but I should think you might leave the indigents alone for one day." "Well, you see I am one myself," laughed Varnum. "Really I can't afford it, so I don't deserve any credit for sticking by the other paupers." "The special rates to Springfield are very low," urged Jack. "I tell you what you can do;--just what I'm going to do. Bet your expenses on the game and then it will all be on Yale." "And if we lose?" queried Varnum. "Oh, well, if we lose, we'll only be hard up, just as we are now," was the assuring response. "I see I have not been tutoring you in Pol. Econ. for nothing," said Varnum. "No, Rattleton, I'd give anything I could afford to see that game, but I can't afford anything, so don't stir me up about it." "All right, have your own way. Come 'round and dine with me to-night." Varnum assented, and Rattleton, calling out to his dog, "come along, Blathers," rode off to the stables. On the way to his room to change his clothes he met the other men of his club table going from Holworthy's room to dinner. He told them that Varnum was coming to his table, and warned them not to talk constant foot-ball all through dinner. "I wish I could help that chap out somehow," he said, discontentedly; "he has got on to the tutoring dodge. He won't tutor me now, except when there is an hour exam. coming, and he knows I have got to go to somebody to be put through if I don't come to him."