"A Herculean full-back—Bah!" fleered Butch, for all the campus knew of
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, extremely rash vow to unearth a "phenom." "The
truth of it is, fellows. Hicks has failed to locate such a wonder as Coach
Corridac outlined, for there ain't no such animal! He doesn't like to
come back to Bannister without having made good his promise, without that
Gargantuan giant he vowed to round up for the Gold and Green."
Just then, as if to substantiate Butch's jeering statement, a youth wearing
the uniform and cap of The Western Union Telegraph Company and
advancing across the campus at that terrific speed always exhibited by
messenger-boys, appeared in the offing. Periscoping the four Seniors on the
fence, he navigated his course accordingly and pulling a yellow envelope
from his cap, he queried, in charmingly chaste English:
"Say, kin youse tell me where to find a feller name o' Brewster, wot's
cap'n o' de football bunch?"
"Right here, Little Nemo," advised the Phillyloo Bird, solemnly. "Hast thou
any messages from New York for me? John D. Rockefeller promised to wire me
whether or not to purchase war-stocks."
The Phillyloo Bird, at this stage of his monologue, was interrupted by a
yell that would have caused a full-blooded Choctaw Indian to turn pale.
This came from good Butch Brewster, who, having signed for the message,
and imagined all manner of catastrophes, from world-wars, earthquakes,
pestilence and loss of wealth, down to bad news from Hicks, after the
fashion of those receiving telegrams but seldom, had scanned the yellow
slip. Never before, or afterward, not even when the luckless Butch fell in
love, and T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., assisted Cupid, did the pachydermic Butch
act so insanely as on this occasion.
"Whoop-eee! Yee-ow! Wow-wow-wow!" howled the supposedly solemn Senior,
tumbling from the Senior fence and rolling on the campus like a decapitated
rooster. "Hip-hip-hooray! Ring the bell, Beef, get the fellows out, have
the Band ready, Oh, where is Coach Corridan? Read it, Beef, Theophilus,
Phillyloo. Oh, Hicks is coming and he's got—"
It is possible that little Theophilus, who firmly believed that big Butch
Brewster had gone emotionally insane, would have fled for help, but at that
juncture members of the Gold and Green football squad, with Head Coach
Patrick Henry Corridan, appeared, marching funereally toward the Gym.,
where a signal quiz was booked for seven forty-five. Beholding the
paralyzing spectacle of their captain apparently in paroxysms on the grass,
Hefty Hollingsworth, Biff Pemberton, Monty Merriweather and Pudge Langdon
hurled themselves on his tonnage, while Roddy Perkins sat on his head, and
wrested the telegram from his grasp,
"Call up Matteawan," shouted Roddy, unfolding the slip, "Butch is getting
barmy in the dome, he—Oh, Coach, fellows—great joy! Just heed."
James Roderick Perkins, as excited as a Senator about to make his first
speech, read aloud the telegram, on which the heedless Hicks had triple
rates:
"BUTCH: