T. Haviland Hicks Senior | Page 8

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 Opperdyke, the
timorous boner 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 Nordyke, 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?"
"Hello, 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 Sophomores roomed, Nordyke, 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
class-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-classmen 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 Opperdyke, whose big-rimmed spectacles, high
forehead, and bushy hair gave him an intensely owlish appearance,
sighed tremendously, stared solemnly at his class-mates, and became
the author of a most astounding statement: "I--I can't study," quavered
the "boner," 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!" ejaculated 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, twangs 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,