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 college any time up to ten years ago." He paused and looked the diners over. "Four fifths of you men who are here to-night knew old Hoddy Irving, our 'prof' in Latin. He served old Huntington College for forty years, the longest term any professor ever served. He made no demands--ever. He took us freshmen under his wing. I used to walk now and then with him, miles around the college, when it wasn't so built up as it now is. He loved the fields and the animals and the trees. He taught me a lot of things besides Latin. Don't you remember the funny little walk he had, sort of a hop forward? Don't you remember the way he'd come up to the college dormitories nights, sometimes, from his house down on the Row, and knock timidly at our doors, and come in and visit? Don't you remember that we used to clear some of those tables mighty quickly, of the chips and the bottles?" There were titters, and some one shouted: "You said it!" "And then, don't you remember, that some ten years ago they turned the old man off, with a pension--so-called--of half his salary. But what was his salary? Two thousand dollars--two thousand dollars at the end of forty years!! You and I, and old Huntington College, turned old Hoddy out to pasture, this pasture, on a thousand a year! And to-night, right now, he's lying in Bellevue, both legs broken, skull fractured, and not a damn cent in the world except insurance enough to bury him. And to-morrow he'll be ours to bury, boys--old Hoddy Irving!" A confusion of voices rose in the room, and over them all a "No!" from some one who seemed to cry out in pain. "Yes!" said Middleton as the murmurs ceased. "Our old Hoddy, starving, loaded up with debt, alone, down in a miserable hall bedroom in Stuyvesant Square. How did I come to know about it? One of our reporters, who covers Bellevue, dug up the story in his day's work. They brought in this old, disheveled, unconscious man--and in his pocket was his name. Kenyon, the reporter, went over to the house on the Square and found there another old fellow that old Hoddy chummed some with, and who knew all the circumstances.