He looked up. A young man of athletic build, with a pleasant, frank face, was standing at the news stand under the Park Place elevated station. Quickly Howard extended his hand.
"Hello, Coxe!" he exclaimed. "What on earth are you doing in New York? Whoever would have expected to meet you in this howling wilderness? How's everything at Yale?"
The athlete grinned.
"Yale be hanged! I don't care a d—. You know I graduated last June. I'm in business now—in a broker's office in Wall Street. Say, it's great! We had a semi-panic last week. Prices went to the devil. Stocks broke twenty points. You should have seen the excitement on the Exchange floor. Our football rushes were nothing to it. I tell you, it's great. It's got college beaten to a frazzle!" Quickly he added: "What are you doing?"
Howard averted his eyes and hung his head.
"Nothing," he answered gloomily.
Coxe had quickly taken note of his former classmate's shabby appearance. He had also heard of his escapades.
"Didn't you hear?" muttered Howard. "Row with governor, marriage and all that sort of thing?
"Of course," he went on, "father's damnably unjust, actuated by absurd prejudice. Annie's a good girl and a good wife, no matter what her father was. D—n it, this is a free country! A man can marry whom he likes. All these ideas about family pride and family honor are old-world notions, foreign to this soil. I'm not going to give up Annie to please any one. I'm as fond of her now as ever. I haven't regretted a moment that I married her. Of course, it has been hard. Father at once shut down money supplies, making my further stay at Yale impossible, and I was forced to come to New York to seek employment. We've managed to fix up a small flat in Harlem and now, like Micawber, I'm waiting for something to turn up."
Coxe nodded sympathetically.