eleven o'clock in the morning
He never invested it , but ate into it day after day , sometimes to pay his gambling debts , sometimes to indulge an absurd and extravagant whim , sometimes to pay his bill at the Lick House , and sometimes for no reason at all , moved simply by a reckless desire for spending . On the evening of a certain Thanksgiving day , nine months after he had sold the house , Vandover came in through the ladies ' entrance of the Imperial , going slowly down the passageway , looking into the little rooms on his right for Ellis or the Dummy . There had been a great intercollegiate football game that day , and Vandover , remembering that he had once found an interest in such things , had at first determined to see it . But toward eleven o'clock in the morning the rain had begun to fall , and Ellis , who was to have gone with him , declared that he did not care enough about the game to go out to it in the rain . Vandover was disappointed ; he fancied that he could have enjoyed the game -- as much as he could enjoy anything of late -- but he hated to go to places alone . In the end , however , he resolved to go whether Ellis went or not . It was a holiday .