“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—!”
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! </i>Say</i>,
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 twanged 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!)
</i>Oh</i>, you bonehead—steal—you
won’t get arrested for it! Hi! Yi!
</i>Ouch</i>, 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 class-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—”
