"'Discharge entire eleven,'" quoth Butch Brewster, having somewhat subdued his frenzy. "'Got whole team in one--knock out part.i.tions between five rooms--make s.p.a.ce for Thor, the Prodigious Prodigy!' Now, what in the world has that lunatical Hicks done? Who can Thor be?"

Tug Cardiff, Buster Brown, Bunch Bingham, Scoop Sawyer, little Skeet Wigglesworth, Don Carterson, and Cherub Challoner, not having given their brawn to the subduing of Butch, now kindly donated their brain, in all manner of weird suggestions. According to their various surmises, T.

Haviland Hicks, Jr., had lured the Strong Man away from Barnum and Bailey's Circus, had in some way reincarnated the mythical Norse G.o.d, Thor, had hired some Greco-Roman wrestler, or by other devices too numerous and ridiculous to mention, had produced a full-back according to Coach Corridan's blue-prints and specifications.

Big Beef McNaughton, seized with an inspiration that supplied locomotive-power to his huge frame, lumbered into the Gym., and soon appeared with monster megaphones, used in "rooting" for Gold and Green teams, which he handed out to his comrades. Then the riotous squad, at his suggestion, sprinted for the Quad., that inner quadrangle or court around which the four cla.s.s dormitories, forming the sides of a square, were built; anyone desiring an audience could be sure of it here, since the collegians in all four dorms. could rush to the Quadrangle side and look down from the windows. In the Quadrangle, under the brilliant arc-lights, the exuberant youths paused,

"One--two--three--let 'er go!" boomed Beef, and the football squad, in ba.s.so profundo, aided by the Phillyloo Bird's uncertain tenor, and Theophilus' quavery treble, roared in a tremendous vocal explosion that shook the dormitories:

"Hicks is coming! Hicks is coming! Everybody out on the campus! Get ready to welcome our T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.! Hicks is bringing Bannister's full-back--a Prodigious Prodigy!"

Windows rattled up, heads were thrust out, a fusillade of questions bombarded the squad in the Quadrangle below; from the three upper-cla.s.s dormitories erupted hordes of howling, shouting youths, and soon the Quad.

was filled with a singing, yelling, madly happy crowd. The Bannister Band, that famous campus musical organization, following a time-honored habit of playing on every possible occasion, gladsomely tuned up and soon the noise was deafening, while study-hour, as prescribed by the Faculty, was forgotten.

"Everybody on the campus, at once!" Butch Brewster, Master-of-Ceremonies, boomed through his megaphone, having aroused excitement to the highest pitch by reading Hicks' telegram. "Old Dan Flannagan's jitney-bus will soon heave into sight. Let the Band blare, make a big noise. Let's show Hicks how glad we are to have him back to old Bannister."

It is historically certain that Mr. Napoleon Bonaparte returning from Jena and Austerlitz, Mr. Julius Caesar, home at Rome from his Conquests, or Mr.

Alexander the Great (Conqueror, not National League pitcher) never received such a welcome as did T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., from his Bannister comrades that night. To the excited students, ma.s.sed on the campus before the Gym.

awaiting his arrival, every second seemed a century; everybody talked at once until the hubbub rivaled that of a Woman's Suffrage Convention. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr., was actually returning to old Bannister; and he was bringing "The Prodigious Prodigy," whatever that was, with him. Knowing the cheery Senior's intense love of doing the dramatic and his great ambition to startle his Alma Mater with some sensational stunt, they could hardly wait for old Dan Flannagan's jitney-bus to roll up the driveway,

"Here he comes!" shrieked, little Skeet Wigglesworth, an excitable Senior, who had climbed a tree to keep watch. "Here comes our Hicks!"

"Honk--Honk!" To the incessant blaring of a raucous horn, old Dan Flannagan's jitney-bus moved up the driveway. The genial Irish Jehu, who for over twenty years had transported Bannister collegians and alumni to and from College Hill in a ramshackle hack drawn by Lord Nelson, an antiquated, somnambulistic horse, had yielded to modern invention at last. Lord Nelson having become defunct during vacation, Old Dan, with a collection taken up by several alumni at Commencement, had bought a battered Ford, and constructed therewith a jitney-bus. This conveyance was fully as rattle-trap in appearance as the traditional hack had been, but the returning collegians hailed it with glee.

"All hail Hicks!" howled Butch Brewster, beside himself with joy, "Altogether--the Bannister yell for--Hicks!"

With half the collegians giving the yell, a number shouting indiscriminately, the Bannister Band blaring furiously, "Behold, The Conquering Hero Comes," with the youths a yelling, howling, shrieking, dancing ma.s.s, old Dan Flannagan, adding his quota of noises with the Claxon, brought his bus to a stop. This was a hilarious spectacle in itself, for on its sides the Bannister students had painted:

HENRY FORD'S "PIECE-OF-A-SHIP," THE DOVE! ALL RIDING IN THIS JIT DO SO AT THEIR OWN RISK! TEN CENTS FOR A JOY-RIDE TO COLLEGE HILL! YES, IT'S A FORD! WHAT DO YOU CARE? GET ABOARD!

On the roof of "The Dove," or "The Crab," as the collegians called it when it skidded sideways, perched precariously that well-known, beloved youth, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. He clutched his pestersome banjo and was vigorously strumming the strings and apparently howling a ballad, lost in the unearthly turmoil. As the jitney-bus stopped, the grinning Hicks arose, and from his lofty, position made a profound bow.

"Speech! Speech! Speech!" A mighty shout arose, and Hicks raised his hand for silence, which was immediately delivered to him.

"Fellows, one and all," he shouted, a mist before his eyes, for his impulsive soul was touched by the ovation, "I--I am glad to be back!

Say--I--I--well, I'm glad to be back--that's all!"

At this masterly oration, which, despite its brevity, contained volumes of feeling, the Bannister students went wild--for a longer period than any political convention ever cheered a nominated candidate, they cheered T.

Haviland Hicks, Jr. "Roar--roar--roar--roar!" in deafening sound-waves, the noise swept across the campus; never had football idol, baseball hero, or any athletic demiG.o.d, in all Bannister's history, been accorded such a tremendous ovation.

"Fellows," called T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., climbing down from his precarious perch, "stand back; I have brought to Bannister the 'Prodigious Prodigy.'

I have rounded up a full-back who will beat Ballard all by himself. Behold the new Gold and Green football eleven, 'Thor'!"

From the grinning Dan Flannagan's jitney-bus, like a Russian bear charging from its den, lumbered a being whose enormous bulk fairly astounded the speechless youths; Butch Brewster, Beef McNaughton, Tug Cardiff, Bunch Bingham, Buster Brown, and Pudge Langdon were popularly regarded as the last word in behemoths, but this "Thor" dwarfed them, towered above them like a Colossus over Lilliputians. He was a youth, and yet a veritable Hercules. Over six feet he stood, with a ma.s.sive head, covered with tousled white hair, a powerful neck, broad shoulders, a vast chest. To a judge of athletes, he would tip the scales at a hundred and ninety pounds, all solid muscle, for that superb physique held not an ounce of superfluous flesh.

"Hicks," said Head Coach Patrick Henry Corridan, gazing at the mountain of muscle, "if size means anything, you have brought old Bannister an entire football squad! What splendid material to train for the Big Games, why--he will be irresistible!"

CHAPTER IV

QUOTING SCOOP SAWYER'S LETTER

"I didn't raise my Ford to be a jitney-- To run the streets, and stay out late at night!

Who dares to put a jitney sign, upon it-- And send my peace-ship out for fares to fight?"

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., standing by his open window at 3 P. M. one afternoon a week after his sensational return to Bannister College, with the "Prodigious Prodigy" in tow, indulged in the soul-satisfying pastime of tw.a.n.ging his banjo, and roaring, in his subterranean voice, a parody on "I Didn't Raise My Boy to be a Soldier." It was actually the first Caruso-like outburst of the pestersome youth that year, but his saengerfest brought vociferous howls of protest from campus and dormitories:

"Bow-wow-wow! The Grand Opery season is starting!"

"Sing some records for a talking-machine company, Hicks!"

"Kill that tom-cat! Listen to the back-fence musicale!"

"Say, Hicks--we'll take your word for that noise!"

On the Gym. steps, loafing a few moments before jogging out to Bannister Field for a strenuous scrimmage under the personal supervision of Slave-Driver Corridan, the Gold and Green football squad had gathered. It was from these stalwart gridiron gladiators that the caustic criticism of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, vocal atrocities emanated, and the imitation of a mournful hound by "Ichabod," the skysc.r.a.ping Senior, was indeed phenomenal.

Added to the howls, whistles, jeers, and shouts of the squad, were like condemnations from other collegians, sky-larking on the campus, or in the dorms.

"At that," grinned Captain Butch Brewster happily, "it surely makes me feel jubilant to hear Hicks' foghorn voice shattering the echoes, with his banjo strumming disturbing the peace--for which offense it shall soon be arrested. We can truly say that old Bannister is now officially opened for another year, for T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., has performed his annual rite--"

"Right--!" scoffed big Pudge Langdon, indignantly, as he gazed up at the happy-go-lucky youth, at the window of his room on the third-floor, campus side, of Bannister Hall, "Hicks ought to be tarred and feathered; there is nothing right in the way he has acted since his return to college! He struts around like Herman, the Master-Magician, and all the fellows fully expect to see him produce white rabbits from his cap, or make varicolored flags out of his handkerchief."

"We ought to toss him in a blanket," stormed Beef McNaughton, in ludicrous rage. "Ever since he mystified Bannister by going out and corralling a Hercules who is an entire eleven in himself, Hicks has maintained that sphinx-like silence as to how he achieved the feat, and he swaggers around, enshrouded in mystery! All we know is that 'Thor' is John Thorwald, of Norwegian descent. If we ask him for information, that wretch Hicks has him trained to say, 'Ask the little fellow, Hicks!'"

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., in truth, had acted in a most reprehensible manner since that memorable night when he brought "Thor, the Prodigious Prodigy,"

to the campus. Not that he ceased to be the same sunny-souled, popular and friendly youth. The collegians, happy at finding his room open-house again, flocked to his cozy quarters, Freshmen fell under the spell of his generous nature, his Beef-Steak Busts, down at Jerry's were nightly occurrences, and he was the same Hicks as of old. But, after the dramatic manner in which Hicks had mysteriously made good the rash vow uttered at Camp Bannister and had brought to Coach Corridan a blond-haired giant who seemed destined to perform prodigies at full-back, the sunny Senior had evidently labored under the delusion that he was "Kellar, The Great Magician."

Instead of relieving the tortured curiosity of the students, wild to know how and where Hicks had unearthed this physical Hercules, who in every way filled the details of Head Coach Corridan's "blue-prints," T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., enjoying to the full this novel method of torturing his comrades, made a baffling mystery of the affair, much to the indignation of his friends.

"Just leave it to Hicks," he would say, when the Bannister youths cajoled, implored, threatened, or argued. "Thor is eligible to play four years of football at old Bannister. I call him Thor, after the great Norse G.o.d, Thor; he is of Norwegian descent. That is all of the Billion-Dollar Mystery I can disclose; ten thousand dollars offered for the correct solution."

"Here comes Scoop Sawyer," said Monty Merriweather, as that Senior, waving his arms in air, catapulted from Bannister Hall, and strode toward the squad on the Gym. steps; his appearance registered wrath, in photo-play parlance, and on reaching his comrades he immediately acquainted them with its cause.

"Listen to that Hicks!" he exploded, gesticulating with a sheaf of papers.

"Hicks, the mocking-bird! He is mocking us--with his 'Billion-Dollar Mystery!' Say--here I am writing to Jack Merritt; he played football four years for old Bannister; he was captain of the Gold and Green eleven; last Commencement he graduated, and the last thing he said to me was, 'Scoop, old pal, write to me next fall, tell me everything about the football season; keep me posted as to new material!' Everything--keep him posted as to new material--Bah! If I write that Hicks has brought a fellow he calls 'Thor,' who spreads the regulars over the field, Jack will want to know the details, and--that villainous Hicks won't divulge his dread secret!"

At this moment, Scoop Sawyer, so-called because he was ambitious to be a newspaper reporter, after graduation, and for his humorous articles in the Bannister Weekly, had his intense wrath soothed by that which has "power to soothe the savage breast"; T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., displaying a wonderful originality by composing, then chanting, his parody, concluded the chorus roaring l.u.s.tily, to a rollicking banjo accompaniment:

"If street car companies gave seats to all patrons The strap-hangers in jitneys would not ride.

There'd be no jits. today If Ford owners would say, I didn't raise my Ford to be a--jitney!"

"That is too much!" raged Captain Butch Brewster, facing his excited colleagues. "Come on, fellows, we'll invade Hicks' room, read him Scoop's letter to Jack Merritt, and make him solve the Mystery! We're done with diplomacy; now, we'll deliver the ultimatum; when the squad returns from scrimmage, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., will tell us all about Thor, or be tossed in a blanket! Are you with me?"

"We are ahead of you!" howled Roddy Perkins, leading a wild charge for the entrance to Bannister Hall. Following him up the two flights of stairs with thunderous tread came Butch, Beef, Monty, Biff, Hefty, Pudge, Tug, Ichabod, Bunch, Buster, Bus Norton, and several second-team players, Cherub, Chub Chalmers, Don, Skeet, and Scoop Sawyer with his letter. With a terrific, blood-chilling clatter, and hideous howls, the Hicks-quelling Expedition roared down the third corridor of Bannister, and surged into the room of that tantalizing T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.!