"It was all a frame-up!" grinned Butch Brewster, triumphantly. "We paid old Bildad five dollars to play his part, and as an actor, he has Booth and Barrymore backed off the stage! We got Coach Brannigan to send you along with us on the cross-country jog, and your absurd dread of dogs, Hicks, made it easy! Bildad, per instructions, produced Caesar Napoleon, and scared you. Then, with a telescope, he watched us, and when I gave the signal, he let loose Bob, the harmless St. Bernard pup, on our trail.

"The pup, as he always does, chased after strangers, ready to play. We yelled for you to run, and you were so scared, you insect, you didn't wait to see the dog. Even when you looked back, in your alarm, you didn't know it was not Caesar Napoleon, for his grim visage was seared on your brain--I mean, where your brain ought to be! And even had you seen it wasn't the bulldog, you would have been frightened, all the same. But I confess, Hicks, when you sailed over that high gate, it was one on us."

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., drew a deep breath, and then a Cheshire cat grin came to his cherubic countenance. So, after all, it had been a hoax; there had not been any peril. No wonder these behemoths had so courageously taken the cherries! But, beyond a doubt, the joke had helped him to win his B. It had shown him he could clear five feet, ten inches, for he had done it--and, in the meet, when the crucial moment came, the knowledge that he had jumped that high, and, therefore, could do it, helped--where the thought that he never had cleared it would have dragged him down. He had at last won his B, a part of his beloved Dad's great ambition was realized, and--

"Oh, just leave it to Hicks!" quoth that sunny-souled, irrepressible youth, swaggering a trifle, "It was my mighty will-power, my terrific determination, that took me over the cross-bar, and not--not your imitation of--"

"Woof! Woof! Woof!" roared the "Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade" in thunderous chorus. "Sick him--Caesar Napoleon--!"

CHAPTER XVII

HICKS MAKES A RASH PROPHECY

"Come on, Butch! Atta boy--some fin, old top! Say, you Beef--you're asleep at the switch. What time do you want to be called? More pep there, Monty--bust that little old bulb, Roddy! Aw, rotten! Say, Ballard, your playing will bring the Board of Health down on you--why don't you bring your first team out? Umpire? What--do you call that an umpire? Why, he's a highway robber, a bandit. Put a 'Please Help the Blind' sign on that hold-up artist!"

Big Butch Brewster, captain of the Bannister College baseball squad, navigating down the third-floor corridor of Bannister Hall, the Senior dormitory, laden with suitcases, bat-bags, and other impedimenta, as Mr.

Julius Caesar says, and vastly resembling a bell-hop in action, paused in sheer bewilderment on the threshold of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, cozy room.

"Hicks!" stormed the bewildered Butch, wrathfully, "what in the name of Sam Hill are you doing? Are you crazy, you absolutely insane lunatic? This is a study-hour, and even if you don't possess an intellect, some of the fellows want to exercise their brains an hour or so! Stop that ridiculous action."

The spectacle Butch Brewster beheld was indeed one to paralyze that pachydermic collegian, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., the sunny-souled, irrepressible Senior, danced madly about on the tiger-skin rug in midfloor, evidently laboring under the delusion that he was a lunatical Hottentot at a tribal dance; he waved his arms wildly, like a signaling brakeman, or howled through a big megaphone, and about his toothpick structure was strung his beloved banjo, on which the blithesome youth tw.a.n.ged at times an accompaniment to his jargon:

"Come on, Skeet, take a lead (plunkety-plunk!) Say, d'ye wanta marry first base--divorce yourself from that sack! (plunk-plunk!) Oh, you bonehead--steal--you won't get arrested for it! Hi! Yi! Ouch, Butch! Oh, I'll be good--"

At this moment, the indignant Butch abruptly terminated T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, noisy monologue by seizing that splinter-youth firmly by the scruff of the neck and forcibly hurling him on the davenport. Seeing his loyal cla.s.s-mate's resemblance to a Grand Central Station baggage-smasher, the irrepressible Senior forthwith imitated a hotel-clerk:

"Front!" howled the grinning Hicks, to an imaginary bellboy, "Show this gentleman to Number 2323! Are you alone, sir, or just by yourself? I think you will like the room-it faces on the coal-chute, and has hot and cold folding-doors, and running water when the roof leaks! The bed is made once a week, regularly, and--"

"Hicks, you Infinitesimal Atom of Nothing!" growled big Butch, ominously.

"What were you doing, creating all that riot, as I came down the corridor?

What's the main idea, anyway, of--"

"Heed, friend of my campus days," chortled the graceless Hicks, keeping a safe distance from his behemoth comrade, "tomorrow-your baseball aggregation plays Ballard College, at that knowledge-factory, for the Championship of the State. Because nature hath endowed me with the Herculean structure of a Jersey mosquito, I am developing a 56-lung-power voice, and I need practice, as I am to be the only student-rooter at the game tomorrow! Q.E.D.! And as for any Bannister student, except perhaps Theophilus Opperd.y.k.e and Thor, desiring to investigate the interiors of their lexicons tonight, I prithee, just periscope the campus."

"I guess you are right, Hicks!" grinned Butch Brewster, as he looked from the window, down on an indescribably noisy scene. "For once, your riotous tumult went unheard. Say, get your traveling-bag ready, and leave that pestersome banjo behind, if you want to go with the nine!"

Several members of the Gold and Green nine, embryo American and National League stars, roosted on the Senior Fence between the Gymnasium and the Administration Building, with, suitcases and bat-bags on the gra.s.s. In a few minutes old Dan Flannagan's celebrated jitney-bus would appear in the offing, coming to transport the Bannister athletes downtown to the station, for the 9 P.M. express to Philadelphia. Incited by Cheer-Leaders Skeezicks McCracken and Snake Fisher, several hundred youths encouraged the nine, since, because of approaching final exams., they were barred by Faculty order from accompanying the team to Ballard. In thunderous chorus they chanted:

"One more Job for the undertaker!

More work for the tombstone maker!

la the local cemetery, they are very--very--very Busy on a brand-new grave for--Ballard!"

As the lovable Hicks expressed it, "'Coming events cast their shadows before.' Commencement overshadows our joyous campus existence!" However, no Bannister acquaintance of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., could detect wherein the swiftly approaching final separation from his Alma Mater had affected in the least that happy-go-lucky, care-free, irrepressible youth. If anything, it seemed that Hicks strove to fight off thoughts of the end of his golden campus years, using as weapons his torturesome saengerfests, his Beefsteak Busts down at Jerry's, and various other pastimes, to the vast indignation of his good friend and cla.s.s-mate, Butch Brewster, who tried futilely to lecture him into the proper serious mood with which Seniors must sail through Commencement!

"You are a Senior, Hicks, a Senior!" Butch would explain wrathfully. "You are popularly supposed to be dignified, and here you persist in acting like a comedian in a vaudeville show! I suppose you intend to appear on the stage, and, when handed your sheepskin, respond by tw.a.n.ging your banjo and roaring a silly ballad."

Yet, the cheery Hicks had been very busy, since that memorable day when, thanks to Caesar Napoleon and the hoax of the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope- Brigade of the track squad, he had cleared the cross-bar at five-ten, and won the event and his white B! Mr. T. Haviland Hicks, Sr., overjoyed at his son's achievement, had sent him a generous check, which the youth much needed, and had promised to be present at the annual Athletic a.s.sociation Meeting, at Commencement, when the B's were awarded deserving athletes, which caused Hicks as much joy as the pink slip.

With his final study sprint for the Senior Finals, his duties as team- manager of the baseball nine, his preparations for Commencement, his social duties at the Junior Prom., and multifarious other details coincident to graduation, the heedless Hicks had not found time to be sorrowful at the knowledge that it soon would end, forever, that he must say "Farewell, Alma Mater," and leave the campus and corridors of old Bannister; yet soon even Hicks' ebullient spirits must fail, for Commencement was a trifle over a week off.

"Hicks, you lovable, heedless, irrepressible wretch," said Big Butch, affectionately, as the two cla.s.s-mates thrilled at the scene. "Does it penetrate that shrapnel-proof concrete dome of yours that the Ballard game tomorrow is the final athletic contest of my, and likewise your, campus career at old Bannister?"

"Similar thoughts has smote my colossal intellect, Butch!" responded the bean-pole Hicks, gladsomely. "But--why seek to overshadow this joyous scene with somber reflections? You-should-worry. You have annexed sufficient B's, were they different, to make up an alphabet. You've won your letter on gridiron, track, and baseball field, and you've been team-captain of everything twice! Why, therefore, sheddest thou them crocodile tears?"

"Not for myself, thou sunny-souled idler!" announced Butch, generously, "But for thee! I prithee, since you pritheed me a few moments hence, let that so-called colossal intellect of yours stride back along the corridors of Time, until it reaches a certain day toward the close of our Freshman year. Remember, you had made a hilarious failure of every athletic event you tried-football, basketball, track, and baseball; you had just made a tremendous farce of the Freshman-Soph.o.m.ore track meet, and to me, your loyal comrade, you uttered these rash words, 'Before I graduate from old Bannister, I shall have won my B in three branches of sport!'

"I reiterate and repeat, tomorrow's game with Ballard is the last chance you will have. There is no possibility that you, with your well-known lack of baseball ability, will get in the game, and--your track B, won in the high-jump, is the only B you have won! Now, do you still maintain that you will make good that rash vow?"

"'Where there's a will, there's a way.' 'Never say die.' 'While there's life, there's hope.' 'Don't give up the ship.' 'Fight to the last ditch.'

'In the bright lexicon of youth there is no such word as fail,'"

quoth the irrepressible Hicks, all in a breath. "As long as there is an infinitesimal fraction of a chance left, I repeat, just leave it to Hicks!"

"You haven't got a chance in the world!" Butch a.s.sured him, consolingly.

"You did manage to get into one football game, for a minute, and you were a 'Varsity player that long. By sticking to it, you have won your track B in the high-jump, thanks to your gra.s.s-hopper build, and we rejoice at your reward! Your Dad is happy that you've won a B, so why not be sensible, and cease this ridiculous talk of winning your B in three sports, when you can see it is preposterously out of the question, absolutely impossible--"

It was not that Butch. Brewster did not want his sunny cla.s.smate to win his B in three sports, or that he would have failed to rejoice at Hicks'

winning the triple honor. Had such a thing seemed within the bounds of possibility, Butch, big-hearted and loyal, would have been as happy as Hicks, or his Dad. But what the behemoth athlete became wrathful at was the obviously lunatical way in which the cheery Hicks, now that his college years were almost ended, parrot-like repeated, "Oh, just leave it to Hicks!" when he must know all hope was dead. In truth, T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., in pretending to maintain still that he would make good the rash vow of his Freshman year, had no purpose but to arouse his comrade's indignation; but Butch, serious of nature, believed there really lurked in Hicks' system some germs of hope.

"We never know, old top!" chuckled Hicks, though he was sure he could never fulfill that promise, as he had not played three-fourths of a season on both the football and the baseball teams, "Something may show up at the last minute, and--"

At that moment, something evidently did show up, on the campus below, for the enthusiastic students howled in: thunderous chorus, as the "Honk!

Honk!" of a Claxon was heard, "Here he comes! All together, fellows--the Bannister yell for the nine--then for good old Dan Flannagan!"

As Hicks and Butch watched from the window, old Dan Flannagan's jitney-bus, to the discordant blaring of a horn, progressed up the driveway, even as it had done on that night in September, when it transported to the campus T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., and Thor, the Prodigious Prodigy. Amid salvos of applause from the Bannister youths, and blasts of the Claxon, old Dan brought "The Dove" to a stop before the Senior Fence, and bowed to the nine, grinning genially the while.

"The car waits at the door, sir!" spoke T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., touching his cap after the fashion of an English butler, before seizing a bat-bag, and his suit-case. "As team manager, I must attempt to force into Skeet Wigglesworth's dome how he and the five subs, are to travel on the C. N. & Q., to Eastminster, from Baltimore. Come on, Butch, we're off--"

"You are always off!" commented Butch, good-humoredly, as he seized his baggage and followed the mosquito-like Hicks from the room, downstairs, and out on the campus. Here the a.s.sembled youths, with yells, cheers, and songs sandwiched between humorous remarks to Dan Flannagan, watched the thrilling spectacle of the Gold and Green nine, with the Team Manager and five subst.i.tutes, fifteen in all, squeeze into and atop of Dan Flannagan's jitney-Ford.

"Let me check you fellows off," said Hicks, importantly, peering into the jitney, for he, as Team Manager, had to handle the traveling expenses.

"Monty Merriweather, Roddy Perkins, Biff Pemberton. Butch Brewster, Skeet Wigglesworth, Beef McNaughton, Cherub Challoner, Ichabod Crane, Don Carterson; that is the regular nine, and are you five subs, present? O. K.

Skeet, climb out here a second."

Little Skeet Wigglesworth, the brilliant short-stop, climbed out with exceeding difficulty, and facing T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., he saluted in military fashion. The team manager, consulting a timetable of the C. N.

&.Q. railroad, fixed him with a stern look.

"Skeet," he spoke distinctly, "now, get this--myself and eight regulars, nine in all, will take the 9 P. M. express for Philadelphia, and stay there all night. Tomorrow, at 8 A. M., we leave Broad Street Station for Eastminster, arriving at 11 A. M. Now I have a lot of unused mileage on the C. N. & Q., and I want to use it up before Commencement. So, heed: you want to go via Baltimore, to see your parents. You take the 9.20 P. M.

express tonight, to Baltimore, and go from that city in the morning, to Eastminster, on the C. N, & Q.--it's the only road. And take the five subs with you, to devour the mileage. Now, has that penetrated thy bomb-proof dome?"

"Sure; you don't have to deliver a Chautauqua lecture, Hicks!" grinned Skeet. "Say, what time does my train leave Baltimore, in the A.M., for Eastminster?"

"Let's see." T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., handing the mileage-books to the shortstop, focused his intellect on the C. N. & Q. timetable. "Oh, yes--you leave Union Station, Baltimore, at 7:30 A.M., arriving at Eastminster at noon; it is the only train, you can get, to make it in time for the game, so remember the hour--7.30 A.M.! Here, stuff the timetable in your pocket."

In a few moments, the team and subst.i.tutes had been jammed into old Dan Flannagan's jitney, and the Bannister youths on the campus concentrated their interest on the sunny Hicks, who, grinning a la Cheshire cat, climbed atop of "The Dove," which old Dan was having as much trouble to start as he had experienced for over twenty years with the late Lord Nelson, his defunct quadruped. Seeing Hicks abstract a Louisville Slugger from the bat-bag, the students roared facetious remarks at the irrepressible youth: