"Coach Corridan will have to use the alarm clock from now on! I'm called away on business. See that my stuff gets to Bannister O.K. Stow it in the room next to yours. I'll be back at college some time in the next century.

Give my adieux to Coach Corridan and the squad.

"Yours truthfully,

"T. HAVILAND HICKS, JR.

"P.S.: Tell Coach Corridan he should worry--not! I'm hot on the trail of a fullback that will make Ted Coy at his coyest look like the paralyzed inmate of an old man's home. Just leave it to Hicks!"

CHAPTER III

HICKS' PRODIGIOUS PRODIGY

"Has anybody here seen our Hicks?

H-i-c-k-s!

Has anybody here seen our Hicks?

If you've seen him, answer, 'Yes!'

He's tall and slim, and he wears a grin, And his banjo-thumping is a sin.

Has anybody here seen our Hicks-- Hicks--and his old banjo?"

Captain Butch Brewster, big Beef McNaughton, the Phillyloo Bird--that flamingo-like Senior--and little Theophilus Opperd.y.k.e, the timorous b.o.n.e.r whom Bannister College called the "Human Encyclopedia," roosted on the sacred Senior Fence, between the Gymnasium and the Administration Building.

A gloomy silence, like a somber mantle, enshrouded the four members of '19, as they listened to a rollicking parody on, "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?"

chanted by some Juniors in Nord.y.k.e, with T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., as the object of solicitude. Nor did the melancholy youths respond to the queries hurled down at them from the dormitories' windows:

"Say, Butch Brewster, where is that crazy Hicks?"

"Beef, ain't our Hicks a-comin' back here no more?"

"h.e.l.lo, Phillyloo, any word from our Hicks yet?"

"Ahoy there, Theophilus, where is Hicks, the Missing?"

The seven-thirty study-hour bell was ringing, its mellow chimes sounding from the Administration Building tower. From the windows of the dormitories gleams of light shot athwart the darkness. Over in Creighton Hall, the abode of Freshmen, a silence reigned, but in Smithson, where the Soph.o.m.ores roomed, Nord.y.k.e, home of the Juniors, and Bannister, haunt of the solemn Seniors, pandemonium obtained. In these dorm. rooms and corridors that night, just as in the cla.s.s-rooms, or on the campus, and Bannister Field that day, there was but one topic. Whenever two students met, came the query inevitable:

"Where is Hicks? Isn't Hicks coming back this year?"

The Freshmen, bewildered, quite naturally, at the furore made over one missing student, asked, "Who is Hicks?" Seeking information from upper-cla.s.smen they received innumerable tales, in the nature of Iliad and Odyssey, concerning T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.; they heard of his campus exploits, such as his originating The Big Brotherhood of Bannister, and they laughed, at recitals of his athletic fiascos. They were told of his inevitably sunny nature, his loyal comradeship, his generous disposition, and as a result, the Freshmen, too, became intensely interested in the all-important campus problem: "Where is T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.?"

Little Theophilus Opperd.y.k.e, whose big-rimmed spectacles, high forehead, and bushy hair gave him an intensely owlish appearance, sighed tremendously, stared solemnly at his cla.s.s-mates, and became the author of a most astounding statement: "I--I can't study," quavered the "b.o.n.e.r,"

he whose tender devotion to his books was a campus tradition, and whose loyalty to his firm friend, the blithesome Hicks, was as that of Damon to Pythias, "I just can't care about my studies, without Hicks here!

Somehow, it--it doesn't seem like old times, on the campus."

"I should say not!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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, tw.a.n.gs 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-d.i.n.k 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 Opperd.y.k.e 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!"

"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., a.s.sisted 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 gra.s.s, 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:

"Coming 8.30 P. M. express today. Discharge entire eleven--got whole team in one. Knock out part.i.tions between five rooms. Make s.p.a.ce for Thor, the Prodigious Prodigy! Leave it to Hicks!

"T. HAVILAND HICKS, JR."

"Hicks is coming!" shrieked the Phillyloo Bird, soaring down from the Senior Fence like a condor. "He will be here in less than an hour; he sent this wire just before his train left Philadelphia. Money is no object, when T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., wants to mystify old Bannister."