"In the famous words of Mr. Somebody-Or-Other," quoth T. Haviland Hicks,
Jr., "something has got to be did, and immediately to once!"
Big Butch Brewster nodded assent. So did Head Coach Patrick Henry Corridan,
Beef McNaughton, Team Manager Socks Fitzpatrick, Monty Merriweather, Dad
Pendleton, President of the Athletic Association, and Deacon Radford,
quarter-back, also Shad Fishpaw, who, being Freshman Class-Chairman,
maintained a discreet silence. Instead of the usual sky-larking, care-free
crowd that infested the cozy quarters of the happy-go-lucky Hicks, every
collegian present, except the ever-cheerful youth, seemed to have lost his
best friend and his last dollar at one fell swoop!
"Oh, yes, something has got to be did!" fleered Beef McNaughton, the
davenport creaking under the combined tonnage of himself and Butch
Brewster, "But who will do it? Where's all that Oh-just-leave-it-to-Hicks
stuff you have pulled for the past three years, you pestiferous insect?
Bah! You did a lot; you dragged a Prodigious Prodigy to old Bannister,
enshrouded him in darkest mystery, and now, when he pushed the 'Varsity off
the field and promised to corral the Championship, single-handed, he puts
his foot down, and says, 'No—I will not play football!' Get busy, Little
Mr. Fix-It."
"Oh, just leave it to Hicks!" accommodated that blithesome Senior, with a
cheeriness he was far from feeling. "You all do know why Thor won't
play football; it is not like last season, when Deke Radford, a star
quarter-back, refused either to play, or to explain his refusal. Let me
get an inspiration, and then Thor will once again gently but firmly thrust
entire football elevens down the field before him!"
As evidence of how intensely serious was the situation, let it be
chronicled that, for the first time in his scatter-brained campus career,
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., did not dare strum his banjo and roar out ballads
to torture his long-suffering colleagues. Popular and beloved as he was,
the gladsome youth hesitated to shatter the quietude of the campus with
his saengerfest, knowing as he did what a terrible blow Thor's utterly
astounding announcement had been to the college.
It was nine o'clock, one night two weeks after the day when John Thorwald,
better known as Thor, the Prodigious Prodigy, so mysteriously produced by
Hicks, had stolidly paralyzed old Bannister by unemotionally stating his
decision to play no more football. Since then, to quote the Phillyloo Bird,
"Bannister has staggered around the ring like a prizefighter with the
Referee counting off ten seconds and trying to fight again before he takes
the count." In truth, the students had made a fatal mistake in building
all their hopes of victory on that blond giant, Thor; seeing his wonderful
prowess, and beholding how, in the first week of the season, the Norwegian
Colossus had ripped to shreds the Varsity line which even the heavy Ballard
eleven of the year before could not batter, it was but natural that the
enthusiastic youths should think of the Championship chances in terms of
Thor. For one week, enthusiasm and excitement soared higher and higher,
and then, to use a phrase of fiction, everything fell with a dull,
sickening thud!
In vain did Coach Corridan, the staff of Assistant Coaches, Captain Butch
Brewster, and others strive to resuscitate football spirit; nightly
mass-meetings were held, and enough perfervid oratory hurled to move a
Russian fortress, but to no avail. It was useless to argue that, without
Thor, Bannister had an eleven better than that of last year, which so
nearly missed the Championship. The campus had seen the massive Thor's
prodigies; they knew he could not be stopped, and to attempt to arouse the
college to concert pitch over the eleven, with that mountain of muscle
blotting out vast sections of scenery, but not in football togs, was not
possible.
"One thing is sure," spoke Dad Pendleton seriously, gazing gloomily from
the window, "unless we get Thor in the line-up for the Big Games, our last
hope of the Championship is dead and interred! And I feel sorry for the big
fellow, for already the boys like him just about as much as a German
loves an Englishman; yet, arguments, threats, pleadings, and logic have
absolutely no effect on him. He has said 'No,' and that ends it!"
"He doesn't understand things, fellows," defended T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.,
with surprising earnestness. "Remember how bewildered he seemed at our
appeal to his college spirit, and his love for his Alma Mater. We might as
well have talked Choctaw to him!"
Butch Brewster, Socks Fitzpatrick, Dad Pendleton, Beef McNaughton, Deacon
Radford, Monty Merriweather, and Shad Fishpaw well remembered that night
after Thor's tragic decision, when they—part of a Committee formed of the
best athletes from all teams, and the most representative collegians of old
Bannister, had invaded Thor's room in Creighton Hall, to wrestle with the
recalcitrant Hercules. Even as Hicks spoke, they visioned it again.