"Blakeson," he bellowed, "where's Cleaver?"
"Do I look like a crystal ball?" I snarled. "Sit tight and amuse the crowd with card tricks. I'm going out to find him." And I went ... but somehow I had a feeling that it was a futile gesture.
I hope the card tricks were good. They had to be to hold that crowd, because it took me three days to find my friend Hank. And I finally located him in—you've guessed it!—the south forty of his farm near Westville. Hank had reverted to the soil. Once again he was clad in coveralls and bulldog shoes. He had turned his back on civilization as a snake discards last year's skin, and the mouth that had once taught pedagogues was again clogged to the incisors with cut plug.
He saw me coming across the field, rose and dusted his knees, and shook his head dolefully.
"Nope, Jim," he said, "it ain't no use askin'. I ain't a-goin' back!"
"Man," I told him, "you're crazy! Don't you know the whole University's in a fever because you skipped out? Why did you go? Helen's all busted up. Don't you love her?"
He made a vain, twisting gesture with his hands. His eyes were bleak.
"Yup, Jim," he said.
"Then for goodness' sakes, why did you do it?"