"I should say not!" ejaculated the Phillyloo Bird, sepulchrally, his
string-bean length draped with extreme decorative effect on the Senior
Fence, "Life at old Bannister without T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., is about as
interesting as 'The Annual Report of the Department of Agriculture!'
Prexy thought he started the college on its Marathon three days ago, but
Bannister will not be officially opened until Hicks stands by his window
some study-hour, twangs that old banjo, and shatters the campus quietude
with a ballad roared in his fog-horn voice!"
Big Butch Brewster, enshrouded in melancholy, instinctively gazed up at the
windows of the room T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. had reserved on the third floor
of Bannister Hall, the Senior dorm., as if he fully expected to behold
the missing youth materialize. There, in lonely grandeur, waited the
sunny-souled Senior's vast aggregation of trunks, crates, and packing
boxes, together with Hicks' baggage brought down from Camp Bannister. The
bothersome banjo had disappeared at the same time the youthful Caruso
imitated the Arabs, folding his figurative tent, and stealing away.
"It's a strange paradox," boomed Butch Brewster, finding that no Hicks
appeared at the window, "but for three years Bannister has stormed at Hicks
for bothering us during study-hour, or at midnight, with his saengerfest,
and now I'd give anything to see him up there, and to hear that banjo, and
his songs! It is just as if the sun doesn't shine on the campus, when T.
Haviland Hicks, Jr., is away!"
Bannister College had been running for three days "on one cylinder," as
the Phillyloo Bird quaintly phrased it, on account of the gladsome Hicks'
mysterious absence. Not a word had the Head Coach, Captain Brewster, the
football squad, or any of the collegians received from the blithesome
youth, since the billet-doux he left with old Hinky-Dink at Camp
Bannister. Old students, returning to the campus for another golden year,
invaded Hicks' room in Bannister, ready to enjoy the cozy den of that
jolly Senior, but they encountered silence and desolation. No one had the
slightest knowledge of where the cheery Hicks could be; they missed his
singing and banjo strumming, his pestersome ways, his cheerful good nature,
his cozy quarters always open house to all, and his Hicks' Personally
Conducted tours downtown to Jerry's for those celebrated Beefsteak Busts.
A telegram to Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., in Pittsburgh, sent by the
worried Butch Brewster, had brought this concise response:
No knowledge of Thomas' whereabouts. He should be at Bannister.
"Queer," reflected Beef McNaughton, shifting his bulk on the protesting
fence. "We know Hicks will be back, for all his luggage is stowed away
in his room, and we are sure he is giving us all this mystery just for a
joke—he dearly loves to arrange a sensational and dramatic climax—but
we just can't get used to his not being on the campus. When Theophilus
Opperdyke can't study, it's high time the S.O.S. signal was sent to T.
Haviland Hicks, Jr."
"That is not the worst of it," growled Captain Butch Brewster, his arm
across little Theophilus' shoulders. "The football squad misses Hicks,
Beef. For the past two seasons he has sat at the training-table, his
invariable good-humor, his Cheshire cat grin, and his sunny ways have kept
the fellows in fine mental trim so they haven't worried over the game. But
now, just as soon as he left Camp Bannister, the barometer of their spirits
went down to zero and every meal at training-table is a funeral. Coach
Corridan can't inject any pep into the scrimmages, and he says if Hicks
doesn't return soon, Bannister's chances of the Championship are gone."
"As Theophilus says," responded the gloomy Beef, "we just can't get used
to his not being here. We miss his good-nature, his sunny smile, the jolly
crowds in his cozy quarters—why, the campus is talking of nothing but
Hicks—and I don't know what Bannister will do after Hicks graduates—shut
down, I suppose!"
"Well, you know," grinned the Phillyloo Bird, his cadaverous structure
humped over like a turkey on the roost, "our Hicks hath sallied forth on
the trail of a full-back, a Hercules who will smash the other elevens to
infinitesimal smithereens! He told the squad to just leave it to Hicks,
so don't be surprised if he is making flying trips to Yale, Harvard, and
Princeton, striving to corral some embryo Ted Coy. Remember how Hicks often
fulfills his rash prophecies!"