It was the only play, if Bannister wanted the Championship enough to try a desperate chance; better a fighting hope for that glory, with a try for a touchdown, than a field-goal, and a tie-score! The lines of scrimmage tensed. The linesmen dug their cleats in the sod, those of Ballard tigerish to break through and block; old Bannister's determined to hold. Back of Ballard's line, the backfield swayed on tip-toe, every muscle nerved, ready to crash through; the ends prepared to knock Roddy and Monty aside, the backs would charge madly ahead, in a berserk rush, to crash into that slim figure.

"Boot it, Hicks!" shrieked Deke Radford, and as he shouted, the pigskin shot from the Bannister center's hands; the Gold and Green line held nobly, but not so the ends. Monty Merriweather, making a bluff at blocking the left end, let him crash past, while he sprinted ahead—Captain Butch Brewster, to whom the pass had been made, ran forward, until he saw he was blocked, and then, seeing Monty dear, he hurled a beautiful forward pass.

Into the arms of the waiting Monty it fell, and that Gold and Green star, absolutely free of tacklers, sprinted twelve yards to the goal-line, falling on the pigskin behind it! Coach Corridan's "100 to 1" chance, suggested by Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., had succeeded, and—the Biggest Game and the Championship had come to old Bannister at last!

Followed a scene pauperizing description! For many long years old Bannister had waited for this glory; years of bitter disappointment, seasons when the Championship had been missed by a scant margin, a drop-kick striking the cross-bar, Butch Brewster blindly crashing into an upright. But now, all their pent-up joy flowed forth in a mighty torrent! Singing, yelling, dancing, howling, the Bannister Band leading them, the Gold and Green students, alumni, Faculty, and supporters, snake-danced around Bannister Field. A vast, writhing, sinuous line, it wound around the gridiron, everyone who possessed a hat flinging it over the cross-bars. The victorious eleven, were borne by the maddened youths—Captain Butch, Pudge, Beef, Monty, Roddy, Ichabod, Tug, Hefty, Buster, Bunch, and—T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. Ballard, firmly believing Hicks would try a field-goal, had been taken completely off guard. Surprised by the daring attempt, it had succeeded with ease, and the final score was Bannister—10; Ballard—6!

"At last! At last!" boomed Butch Brewster, to whom this was the happiest day of his life. "The Championship at last. My great ambition is realized. Old Bannister has won the Championship, and I was the Team Captain!"

After a time, when "the shouting and the tumult died," or at least quieted somewhat, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., felt a hand on his arm, and looking down from the shoulders on which he perched, he saw his Dad. Mr. Hicks' strong face was aglow with pride and a vast joy, and he shook his son's hand again and again.

"I understand, Thomas!" he said, and his words were reward enough for the youth. "It was a big sacrifice, but you made it gladly—I know! You gave up personal glory for the greater goal, and—old Bannister won the Championship! You helped win, for the winning play turned on you. It was splendid, my son, and I am proud of you! No matter if your sacrifice is never known to the fellows, I understand."

A moment of silence on Hicks' part; then the sunny youth grinned at his beloved Dad, as he responded blithesomely: "I'm Pollyanna, that old Bannister and I won out, Dad!"



CHAPTER XV

HICKS HAS A "HUNCH"

"Ladies and gentlemen, Seniors, Juniors, Sophomores, human beings, and—Freshmen! Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr., the Olympic High-Jump Champion, holder of the World's record, and winner at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition National Championships, in his event, is about to high jump! The bar is at five feet, ten inches. Mr. Hicks is the Herculean athlete in the crazy-looking bathrobe."

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., his splinter-structure enshrouded in that flamboyant bathrobe of vast proportions and insane colors, that inevitably attended his athletic efforts, shaming Joseph's coat-of-many-colors, gazed despairingly at his good friend, Butch Brewster, and Track-Coach Brannigan, with a Cheshire cat grin on his cherubic countenance.

"It's no use, Butch, it's no use!" quoth he, with ludicrous indignation, as big Tug Cardiff, the behemoth shot-putter, through a huge megaphone imitated a Ballyhoo Bill, and roared his absurd announcement to the hilarious crowd of collegians in the stand. "Old Bannister will never take my athletic endeavors seriously. Here I have won two second places, and a third, in the high-jump this season, and have a splendid show to annex first place and my track B in the Intercollegiates, but—hear them!"

It was a balmy, sunshiny afternoon in late May. The sunny-souled, happy-go-lucky T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had trained indefatigably for the high jump, with the result that he had won several points for his team—however, he had not realized his great ambition of first place, and his track letter.

As Hicks now exclaimed to his team-mate and Coach Brannigan, no matter, to the howling Bannister youths, if he had won three places in the high jump, in regularly scheduled meets; his comrades had been jeering at his athletic fiascos for nearly four years, and even had Hicks suddenly blossomed out as a star athlete, they would not have abandoned their joyous habit. Still, those football 'Varsity players to whom good Butch had read Hicks, Sr.'s, letters, and explained the sunny youth's persistence, despite his ridiculous failures, though they kept on hailing his appearance on Bannister Field with exaggerated joy, understood the care-free collegian, and loved him for his ambition to please his Dad. Since Hicks had absolutely refused to accept his B, for any sport, unless he won it according to Athletic Association eligibility rules, the eleven had kept secret the contents of the letters Butch Brewster had read to them, for Hicks requested it.

The Bannister College track squad, under Track Coach Brannigan and Captain Spike Robertson, had been training most strenuously for that annual cinder-path classic, the State Intercollegiate Track and Field Championships. The sprinters had been tearing down the two-twenty straightaway like suburban commuters catching the 7.20 A.M. for the city. Hammer-throwers and shot-putters—the weight men—heaved the sixteen-pound shot, or hurled the hammer, with reckless abandon, like the Strong Man of the circus. Pole-vaulters seemed ambitious to break the altitude records, and In so doing, threatened to break their necks; hurdlers skimmed over the standard as lightly as swallows, though no one ever beheld swallows hurdling. The distance runners plodded determinedly around the quarter-mile track, broad-jumpers tried to jump the length of the landing-pit. And T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., vainly essayed to clear five-ten In the high-jump!

It was the last-named event that "broke up the show," as the Phillyloo Bird quaintly stated, somewhat wrongly, since the appearance of that blithesome youth in the offing, his flamboyant bathrobe concealing his shadow-like frame, had started the show, causing the track squad, as well as a hundred spectator-students, to rush for seats in the stand. The arrival of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., to train for form and height in the high-jump, though a daily occurrence, was always the signal for a Saturnalia of sport at his expense, because—

"You can't live down your athletic past, Hicks!" smiled good-hearted Butch Brewster. "Your making a touchdown for the other eleven, by running the wrong way with the pigskin, your hilarious fiascos in every sport, your home-run with the bases full, on a strike-out-are specters to haunt you. Even now that you have a chance to win your B, just listen to the fellows."

The track squad's "heavy weight—white hope" section, composed of hammer-heavers and shot-putters—Tug Cardiff, Beef McNaughton, Pudge Langdon, Buster Brown, Biff Pemberton, Hefty Hollingsworth, and Bunch Bingham, equipped with megaphones, and with the basso profundo voices nature gave them, lined up on both sides of the jumping-standards, and chanted loudly:

"All hail to T. Haviland Hicks! He runs like a carload of bricks; When to high jump he tries From the ground he can't rise— For he's built on a pair of toothpicks!"

This saengerfest was greeted with vociferous cheers from the vastly amused youths in the stands, who hailed the grinning Hicks with jeers, cat-calls, whistles, and humorous (so they believed) remarks:

"Say, Hicks, you won't never be able to jump anything but your board-bill!"

"You're built like a grass-hopper, Hicks, but you've done lost the hop!"

"If you keep on improving as you've done lately, you'll make a high-jumper in a hundred more years, old top!"

"You may rise in the world, Hicks, but never in the high jump!"

"Don't mind them, Hicks!" spoke Coach Brannigan, his hands on the happy-go-lucky youth's shoulders. "Listen to me; the Intercollegiates will be the last track meet of your college years, and unless you take first place in your event, you won't win your track B. Second, McQuade, of Hamilton, will do five-eight, and likely an inch higher, so to take first place, you, must do five-ten. You have trained and practiced faithfully this season, but no matter what I do, I can't give you that needed two inches, and—"

"I know it, Coach!" responded the chastened Hicks, throwing aside his lurid bathrobe determinedly, and exposing to the jeering students his splinter-frame. "Leave it to Hicks, I'll clear it this time, or—"

"Not!" fleered Butch, whom Hicks' easy self-confidence never failed to arouse. "Hicks, listen to me, I can tell you why you can't get two inches higher. The whole trouble with you is this; for almost four years you have led an indolent, butterfly, care-free existence, and now, when you must call on yourself for a special effort, you are too lazy! You can dear five-ten; you ought to do it, but you can't summon up the energy. I've lectured you all this time, for your heedless, easy-going ways, and now—you pay for your idle years!"

"You said an encyclopedia, Butch!" agreed the Coach, with vigor. "If only something would just make Hicks jump that high, if only he could do it once, and know it is in his power, he could do it in the Intercollegiates, aided by excitement and competition! Let something scare him so that he will sail over five-ten, and—he will win his B. He has the energy, the build, the spring, and the form, but as you say, he is so easy-going and lazy, that his natural grass-hopper frame avails him naught."

"Here I go!" announced Hicks, who, to an accompaniment of loud cheers from the stand, had been jogging up and down in that warming-up process known to athletes as the in place run, consisting of trying to dislocate one's jaw by bringing the knees, alternately, up against the chin. "Up and over—that's my slogan. Just watch Hicks."

Starting at a distance of twenty yards from the high-jump standards, on which the cross-bar rested at five feet, ten inches, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., who vastly resembled a grass-hopper, crept toward the jumping-pit, on his toe-spikes, as though hoping to catch the cross-bar off its guard. Advancing ten yards, he learned apparently that his design was discovered, so he started a loping gallop, turning to a quick, mad sprint, as though he attempted to jump over the bar before it had time to rise higher. With a beautiful take-off, a splendid spring—a quick, writhing twist in air, and two spasmodic kicks, the whole being known as the scissors form of high jump, the mosquito-like youth made a strenuous effort to clear the needed height, but—one foot kicked the cross-bar, and as Hicks fell flat on his back, in the soft landing-pit, the wooden rod, In derision, clattered down upon his anatomy.

"Foiled again!" hissed Hicks, after the fashion of a "Ten-Twent'-Thirt'" melodrama-villain, while from the exuberant youths in the grandstand, who really wanted Hicks to clear the bar, but who jeered at his failure, nevertheless, sounded:

"Hire a derrick, Hicks, and hoist yourself over the bar!"

"Your head is light enough—your feet weigh you down!"

"'Crossing the Bar'—rendered by T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.!"

"Going up! Go play checkers, Hicks, you ain't no athlete!"

While the grinning, albeit chagrined T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., reposed gracefully on his back, staring up at the cross-bar, which someone kindly replaced on the pegs, big Butch Brewster, who seemed suddenly to have gone crazy, tried to attract Coach Brannigan's attention. Succeeding, Butch—usually a grave, serious Senior, winked, contorted his visage hideously, pointed at Hicks, and sibilated, "Now, Coach—now is your chance! Tell Hicks—"

Tug Cardiff, Biff Pemberton, Hefty Hollingsworth, Bunch Bingham, Buster Brown, Beef McNaughton, and Pudge Langdon, who had been attacked in a fashion similar to Butch's spasm, concealed grins of delight, and made strenuous efforts to appear guileless, as Track-Coach Brannigan approached T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. To that cheery youth, who was brushing the dirt from his immaculate track togs, and bowing to the cheering youths in the stand, the Coach spoke:

"Hicks," he said sternly, "you need a cross-country jog, to get more strength and power in your limbs! Now, I am going to send the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope Brigade for a four-mile run, and you go with them. Oh, don't protest; they are all shot-putters and hammer-throwers, but Butch, and they can't run fast enough to give a tortoise a fast heat. Take 'em out two miles and back, Butch, and jog all the way; don't let 'em loaf! Off with you,"

The unsuspecting Hicks might have detected the nigger in the woodpile, had he not been so anxious to make five-ten in the high-jump. However, willing to jog with these behemoths, with whom even he could keep pace, so as to develop more jumping power, the blithesome youth cast aside his garish bathrobe, pranced about in what he fatuously believed was Ted Meredith's style, and howled:

"Follow Hicks! All out for the Marathon—we're off! One—two—three—go!"

With the excited, track squad, non-athletes, and the baseball crowd, which had ceased the game to watch the start, yelling, cheering, howling, and whistling, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., drawing his knees up in exaggerated style at every stride, started to lead the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade on its cross-country run. Without wondering why Coach Brannigan had suddenly elected to send him along with the hammer-throwers and shot-putters, on the jog, and not having seen the insane facial contortions of the Brigade, before the Coach gave orders, the gladsome Senior started forth in good spirits, resembling a tugboat convoying a fleet of battleships.

"'Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho! And over the country we go!'" warbled Hicks, as the squad left Bannister Field, and jogged across a green meadow. "'—O'er hill and dale, through valley and vale, Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho!'"

"Save your wind, you insect!" growled Butch Brewster, with sinister significance that escaped the heedless Hicks, as the behemoth Butch, a two-miler, swung into the lead. "You'll need it, you fish, before we get back to the campus! Not too fast, you flock of human tortoises. You'll be crawling on hands and knees, if you keep that pace up long!"

A mile and a half passed. Butch, at an easy jog, had led his squad over green pastures, up gentle slopes, and across a plowed field, by way of variety. At length, he left the road on which the pachydermic aggregation had lumbered for some distance, and turned up a long lane, leading to a farm-house. Back of it they periscoped an orchard, with cherry-trees, laden with red and white fruit, predominating. Also, floating toward the collegians on the balmy May air came an ominous sound:

"Woof! Woof! Woof! Bow-wow-wow! Woof!"

"Come on, fellows!" urged Butch Brewster. "We'll jog across old Bildad's orchard and seize some cherries—the old pirate can't catch us, for we are attired for sprinting. Don't they look good?"

"Nothing stirring!" declared Hicks, slangily, but vehemently, as he stopped short in his stride. "Old Bildad has got a bulldog what am as big as the New York City Hall. He had it on the campus last month, you know! Not for mine! I don't go near that house, or swipe no cherries from his trees. If you wish to shuffle off this mortal coil, drive right ahead, but I will await your return here."

T, Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, dread of dogs, of all sizes, shapes, pedigrees, and breeds, was well known to old Bannister; hence, the Heavy-weights now jeered him unmercifully. Old "Bildad," as the taciturn recluse was called, who lived like a hermit and owned a rich farm, did own a massive bulldog, and a sight of his cruel jaws was a "No Trespass" sign. With great forethought, when cherries began to ripen, the farmer had brought Caesar Napoleon to the campus, exhibited him to the awed youths, and said, "My cherries be for sale, not to be stole!" which object lesson, brief as it was, to date, had seemed to have the desired effect. Yet—here was Butch proposing that they literally thrust their heads, or other portions of their anatomies, into the jaws of death!

"Well," said Bunch Bingham at last, "I tell you what; we'll jog up to the house and ask old Bildad to sell us some cherries; we can pay him when he comes to the campus with eggs to sell, Come along. Hicks, I'll beard the bulldog in his kennel."

So, dragged along by the bulky hammer-throwers and shot-putters, the protesting T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., in mortal terror of Caesar Napoleon, and the other canine guardians of old Bildad's property, progressed up the lane toward the house.

"I got a hunch," said the reluctant Hicks, sadly, "that things ain't a-comin' out right! In the words of the immortal Somebody-Or-Other, 'This 'ere ain't none o' my doin'; it's a-bein' thrust on me!' All right, my comrades, I'll be the innocent bystander, but heed me—look out for the bulldog!"



CHAPTER XVI

THANKS TO CAESAR NAPOLEON

The Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade, towing the mosquito-like T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., advanced on the stronghold of old Bildad, so named because he was a pessimistic Job's comforter, like Bildad, the Shuhite, of old—like a flock of German spies reconnoitering Allied trenches. Hearing the house, with Butch and Beef holding the helpless, but loudly protesting Hicks, who would fain have executed what may mildly be termed a strategic retreat, big Tug Cardiff boldly marched, in close formation, toward the door, when the portal suddenly flew open.

"Woof! Woof! Bow! Wow! Woof! Let go, Butch—there's the dog!"

Amid ferocious howls from Caesar Napoleon, and alarmed protests from the paralyzed Hicks, who could not have run, with his wobbly knees, had he been set free by his captors, old Bildad, towed from the house by Caesar Napoleon, who strained savagely at the leash until his face bulged, burst upon the scene with impressive dramatic effect! It was difficult to decide, without due consideration, which was the more interesting. Bildad, a huge, gnarled old Viking, with matted gray hair, bushy eyebrows, a flowing beard, and leathery face, a fierce-looking giant, was appalling to behold, but so was Caesar Napoleon, an immense bulldog, cruel, bloodthirsty, his massive jaws working convulsively, his ugly fangs gleaming, as he set his great body against the leash, and gave evidence of a sincere desire to make free lunch of the Bannister youths. As Buster Brown afterward stated, "Neither one would take the booby prize at a beauty show, but at that, the bulldog had a better chance than Bildad!" T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., let it be recorded, could not have qualified as a judge, since his undivided attention was awarded to Caesar Napoleon!

"What d'ye want round here, ye rapscallions?" demanded Bildad, courteously, holding the savage bulldog with one hand, and constructing a ponderous fist with the other, "Hike—git off'n my land, y'hear? Git, er Caesar Napoleon'll git holt o' them scanty duds ye got on!"

"We want to—to buy some cherries, Mr.—Mr. Bildad!" explained Bunch Bingham, edging away nervously. "We won't steal any, honest, sir. Well pay you for them the very next time you come to the campus with milk and eggs."

"Ho! Ho!" roared old Bildad, piratically, his colossal body shaking, "A likely tale, lads—an' when I come for my money, ye'll jeer me off the campus, an' tell me to whistle for it! Off my land—git, an' don't let me cotch ye on it inside o' two minutes, or I'll let Caesar Napoleon make a meal off'n yer bones—git!"

To express it briefly, they got. T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., not standing on the order of his going, set off at a sprint that, while it might have caused Ted Meredith to lose sleep, also aroused in Caesar Napoleon an overwhelming desire to take out after the fugitive youth, so that Mr. Bildad was forced to exert his vast strength to hold the massive bulldog. Butch, Beef, Hefty, Tug, Buster, Bunch, Pudge, and Biff, a pachydermic crew, awed by Caesar Napoleon's bloodthirsty actions, jogged off in the wake of Hicks, who confidently expected to hear the bulldog giving tongue, on his trail, at every second.

Another lane, making in from a road making a cross-roads with the one from which they came to Bildad's house, ran alongside the orchard for two hundred yards, inside the fence; at its end was a high roadgate. At what they decided was a safe distance from the "war zone," the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade, and T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., the latter forcibly restrained from widening the margin between him and peril, held a council on preparedness.

"The old pirate!" stormed Butch Brewster, gazing back to where the vast figure of old Bildad, striding toward the house, towered. "We can't let him get away with that, fellows. I'll have some of his cherries now, or—"

"No, no—don't, Butch!" chattered Hicks, whose dread of dogs amounted to an obsession. "He can still see us, and if you leave the lane, he will send Caesar Napoleon after us! Oh, don't—"

But Butch Brewster, evidently wrathful at being balked, strode from the path, or lane, of virtue, toward a cherry-tree, whose red fruit hung temptingly low, and his example was followed by every one of the Brigade, leaving the terrified Hicks to wait in the lane, where, because of his alarm, he had no time to wonder at the bravado of his behemoth comrades. However, finding that Bildad had disappeared, and believing he had taken Caesar Napoleon into the house, the sunny Hicks, who was far from a coward otherwise, but who had an unreasonable dread of dogs, little or big, was about to wax courageous, and join his team-mates, when a wild shout burst from Pudge Langdon:

"Run, fellows—run! Bildad's put the bulldog on us! Here comes—Caesar Napoleon—!"

With a blood-chilling "Woof! Woof!" steadily sounding louder, nearer, a streak of color shot across the orchard, from the house, toward the affrighted Brigade, while old Bildad's hoarse growl shattered the echoes with "Take 'em out o' here, Nap—chaw 'em up, boy!" For a startled second, the youths stared at the on-rushing body, shooting toward them through the orchard-grass at terrific speed, and then:

"Run!" howled T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., terror providing him with wings, as per proverb. Down the lane, at a pace that would have done credit to Barney Oldfield in his Blitzen Benz, the mosquito-like youth sprinted madly, and ever, closer, closer on his trail, sounded that awful "Woof! Woof!" from Caesar Napoleon, who, as Hicks well knew, was acting with full authority from Bildad! He heard, as he fled frantically, the excited shouts of his comrades.

"Beat it, Hicks—he's right after you—run! Run!"

"Jump the fence—he can't get you then—jump!"

"He's right on your trail, Hicks—sprint, old man!"

"Make the fence, old man—jump it—and you're safe!"

The terrible truth dawned on the frightened youth, as he desperately sprinted: the innocent bystander always gets hurt. He had protested against the theft of Bildad's cherries, and naturally, the bulldog had kept after him! But it was too late to stop, for the old adage was extremely appropriate, "He who hesitates is lost." He must make that road-gate, and tumble over it, in some fashion, or be torn to shreds by Caesar Napoleon, the savage dog that the cruel Bildad had sent after the youths.

Nearer loomed the road-gate, appallingly high. Closer sounded the panting breath of the ferocious Caesar Napoleon, and his incessant "Woof-woof!" became louder. It seemed to the desperate Hicks that the bulldog was at his heels, and every instant he expected to feel those sharp teeth take hold of his anatomy! Once, the despairing youth imitated Lot's wife and turned his head. He saw a body streaking after him, gaining at every jump, also he lost speed; so thereafter, he conscientiously devoted his every energy to the task in hand, that of making the gate, and getting over it, before Caesar Napoleon caught his quarry!

At last, the road-gate, at least ten feet high, to Hicks' fevered imagination, came so close that a quick decision was necessary, for Caesar Napoleon, also, was in the same zone, and in a few seconds he would overhaul the fugitive. T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., realizing that a second lost, perhaps, might prove fatal to his peace of mind, desperately resolved to dash at the gate, and jump; if he succeeded even in striking somewhere near the top, and falling over, he would not care, for the bulldog would not follow him off Bildad's land. From his comrades, far in the rear, came the chorus:

"Jump, Hicks! He's right on your heels!"

Like the immortal Light Brigade, Hicks had no time to reason about anything. His but to jump or be bitten summed up the situation. So, with a last desperate sprint, a quick dash, he left the ground—luckily, the earth was hard, giving him a solid take-off, and he got a splendid spring. As he arose In air, al! the training and practicing for form stayed with him, and instinctively he turned, writhed, and kicked—

For a fleeting second, he saw the top of the gate beneath his body, and he felt a thrill as he beheld twisted strands of barbed wire, cruel and jagged, across it; then, with a great sensation of joy, he knew that he had cleared the top, and a second later, he landed on the ground, in the country road, in a heap.

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., that sunny-souled, happy-go-lucky, indolent youth, for once in his care-free campus career aroused to strenuous action, scrambled wildly to his feet, and forcibly realized the truth of Longfellow's, "And things are not-what they seem!" Instead of the ferocious, bloodthirsty bulldog, Caesar Napoleon, a huge, half-grown St. Bernard pup gamboled inside the gate, frisking about gleefully, and exhibiting, even so that Hicks, with all his innate dread of dogs, could understand it, a vast friendliness. In fact, he seemed trying to say, "That's fun. Come on and play with me some more!"

"Hey, fellows," shrieked the relieved Hicks, "that ain't Caesar Napoleon! Why, he just wanted to play."

Bewildered, the members of the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade of the Bannister College track squad rushed on the scene. To their surprise, they found not a savage bulldog, but a clumsy, good-natured St. Bernard puppy, who frisked wildly about them, groveled at their feet, and put his huge paws on them, with the playfulness of a juvenile elephant.

"Why, it isn't Nappie, for a fact!" gasped Butch. "Oh, I am so glad that old Bildad wasn't mean enough to put the bulldog after us, for he is dangerous. He scared us, though, and put this pup on our trail. He wanted to play, and he thought it all a game, when Hicks fled. Oho! What a joke on Hicks."

"I don't care!" grinned Hicks, thus siding with the famous Eva Tanguay. "You fellows were fooled, too! You were too scared to run, and if it had been Caesar Napoleon, I'd have saved your worthless lives by getting him after me! I'll bet Bildad is snickering now, the old reprobate! Why, Tug, are you crazy?"

Tug Cardiff, indeed, gave indications of lunacy. He marched up to the road-gate, and stood close to it, so that the barbed wire top was even with his hair; then he backed off, and gazed first at the gate, then at the bewildered Hicks, while he grinned at the dazed squad in a Cheshire cat style.

"Measure it, someone!" he shouted. "I am nearly six feet tall, and it comes even with the top of my dome! Can't you see, you brainless imbeciles, Hicks cleared it."

"Wait for me here!" howled big Butch Brewster, climbing the fence and starting down the road at a pace that did credit even to that fast two-miler. The Brigade, In the absence of their leader, tried to estimate the height of the gate, and Hicks, gazing at its barbed-wire top, shuddered. The St. Bernard pup, having caused T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., for once in his indolent life to exert every possible ounce of energy in his splinter-frame, groveled at his feet, and strove to express his boundless joy at their presence.

Butch Brewster, in fifteen minutes, returned, panting and perspiring, bearing a tape-measure, borrowed at the next farm-house. With all the solemnity of a sacred rite being performed, the youths waited, as Butch and Tug, holding the tape taut, carefully measured from the ground to the top of the barbed wire on the gate. Three times they did this, and then, with an expression of gladness on his honest countenance, Butch hugged the dazed T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., while Tug Cardiff howled, "Now for the Intercollegiates and your track B, Hicks! You can do five-ten in the meet, for Coach Brannigan said you could dear it, if only you did it once."

"Why—what do you mean, Tug?" quavered Hicks, not daring to allow himself to believe the truth. "You—you surely don't mean—"

"I mean, that now you know you can jump that high," boomed Tug, executing a weird dance of exultation, In which, the Brigade joined, until it resembled a herd of elephants gone insane, "for you have done it—allowing for the sag, and everything, that gate is just five feet, ten inches high, and—you cleared it!"

"Ladies and gentlemen—Hicks, of Bannister, is about to high jump! Hicks and McQuade, of Hamilton, are tied for first place at five feet eight inches! McQuade has failed three times at five-ten! Hicks' third and last trial! Height of bar—five feet ten inches!"

This time, however, it was not big Tug Cardiff, imitating a Ballyhoo Bill, and inciting the Bannister youths to hilarity at the expense of the sunny-souled T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.; it was the Official Announcer at the Annual State Intercollegiate Field and Track Championships, on Bannister Field, and his announcement aroused a tumult of excitement in the Bannister section of the stands, as well as among the Gold and Green cinder-path stars.

"Come on, Hicks, old man!" urged Butch Brewster, who, with a dozen fully as excited comrades of the cheery Hicks, surrounded that splinter-athlete. "It's positively your last chance to win your track B, or your letter in any sport, and please your Dad! If they lower the bar, and you two jump off the tie, McQuade's endurance will bring him out the winner."

"You can clear five-ten!" encouraged Bunch Bingham. "You did it once, when you believed Caesar Napoleon was after you. Just summon up that much energy now, and clear that bar! Once over, the event and your letter are won! Oh, if we only had that bulldog here, to sick on you."

Sad to chronicle, the score-board of the Intercollegiates recorded the results of the events, so far, thus:

HAMILTON ............35 BALLARD .............20 BANNISTER ...........28

It was the last event, and even did Hicks win the high-jump, McQuade's second place would easily give old Ham. the Championship. Hence, knowing that victory was not booked for an appearance on the Gold and Green banners, the Bannister youths, wild for the lovable, popular Hicks to win his Bs vociferously pulled for him:

"Come on, Hicks—up and over, old man—it's easy!"

"Jump, you Human Grass-Hopper—you can do it!"

"Now or never, Hicks! One big jump does the work!"

"Sick Caesar Napoleon on him, Coach; he'll clear it then!"

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., casting aside that flamboyant bathrobe, for what he believed was the last athletic event of his campus career, stood gazing at the cross-bar. One superhuman effort, a great explosion of all his energy, such as he had executed when he cleared the gate, thinking Caesar Napoleon was after him, and the event was won! He had cleared that height, it was within his power. If he failed, as Butch said, the bar would be lowered, and then raised until one or the other missed once. McQuade, with his superior strength and endurance, must inevitably win, but as he had just missed on his third trial at five-ten, if Hicks cleared that height on his final chance, the first place was his.

"And my B!" murmured Hicks, tensing his muscles. "Oh, won't my Dad be happy? It will help him to realize some of his ambition, when I show him my track letter! It is positively my last chance, and I must clear it."

With a vast wave of determined confidence inundating his very being, Hicks started for the bar; after those first, peculiar, creeping steps, he had just started his gallop, when he heard Tug Cardiff's basso, magnified by a megaphone, roared:

"All together, fellows—let 'er go—"

Then, just as Hicks dug his spikes into the earth, in that short, mad sprint that gives the jumper his spring, just as he reached the take-off, a perfect explosion of noise startled him, and he caught a sound that frightened him, tensed as he was:

"Woof! Woof! Bow! Wow! Woof! Woof! Woof! Look out, Hicks, Caesar Napoleon is after you!"

Psychology Is inexplicable. Ever afterward, Hicks' comrades of that cross-country run averred strenuously that their roaring through megaphones, in concert, imitating Caesar Napoleon's savage bark at the psychological moment, flung the mosquito-like youth clear of the cross-bar and won him the event and his B. Hicks, however, as fervidly denied this statement, declaring that he would have won, anyhow, because he had summoned up the determination to do it! So it can not be stated just what bearing on his jump the plot of Butch Brewster really had. In truth, that behemoth had entertained a wild idea of actually hiring old Bildad and Caesar Napoleon to appear at the moment Hicks started for his last trial, but this weird scheme was abandoned!

Fifteen minutes later, when T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had escaped from the riotous Bannister students, delirious with joy at the victory of the beloved youth, the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope Brigade, capturing the grass-hopper Senior, gave him a shock second only to that which he had experienced when first he believed Caesar Napoleon was on his trail.

"Perhaps our barking didn't make you jump it!" said Beef McNaughton, when Hicks indignantly denied that he had been scared over the cross-bar, "but indirectly, old man, we helped you to win! If we had not put up a hoax on you—"

"A hoax?" queried the surprised Hicks. "What do you mean—hoax?"

"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 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!) 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 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—"

"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 Opperdyke 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 grass. 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 class-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 twanging 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 Association 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 class-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-Sophomore 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 assured 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 grass-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 classmate 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 assembled 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 substitutes, 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 substitutes 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:

"Home-run Hicks—he made a home-run—on a strike-out!"—"Put Hicks in the game, Captain Butch—he will win it."—"Watch Hicks—he'll pull some bonehead play!"—"Bring home the Championship, but—lose Hicks somewhere!"

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., as the battered engine of the jit. yielded to old Dan's cranking, and kindly consented to start, surveyed the yelling students, seized a bat, and struck an attitude which he fatuously believed was that of Ty Cobb, about to make a hit; taking advantage of a lull in the tumult, the lovable youth howled at the hilarious crowd:

"Just leave it to Hicks! I will win the game and the Championship, for my Alma Mater, and—I'll do it by my headwork!"



CHAPTER XVIII

T. HAVILAND HICKS, JR'S. HEADWORK

"Play Ball! Say, Bannister, are you afraid to play?"

"Call the game, Mr. Ump.—make 'em play ball!"

"Batter up! Forfeit the game to Ballard, Umpire!"

"Lend 'em Ballard's bat-boy-to make a full nine!"

Captain Butch Brewster, his honest countenance, as a moving-picture director would express it, "registering wrathful dismay," lumbered toward the Ballard Field concrete dug-out, in which the Gold and Green players had entrenched themselves, while from the stands, the Ballard cohorts vociferated their intense impatience at the inexplicable delay.

"We have got to play," he raged, striding up and down before the bench. "The game is ten minutes late now, and the crowd is restless! And here we have only eight 'Varsity players, and no one to make the ninth—not even a sub.! Oh, I could—"

"That brainless Skeet Wigglesworth!" ejaculated T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., who, arrayed like a lily of the field, reposed his splinter-structure on the bench with his comrades. "In some way, he managed to miss that train from Baltimore! They didn't come on the noon C, N. & Q. train, and there isn't another one until night. My directions were as plain as a German war-map, and it beats me how Skeet got befuddled!"

Gloom, as thick and abysmal as a London fog, hovered over the Bannister dug-out. On the concrete bench, the seven Gold and Green athletes, Beef, Monty, Roddy, Biff, Ichabod, Don, and Cherub, with Team Manager T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., stared silently at Captain Butch Brewster, who seemed in imminent peril of exploding. Something probably never before heard of in the annals of athletic history had happened. Bannister College, about to play Ballard the big game for the State Championship, had lost a short-stop and five substitutes, in some unfathomable manner, and it was impossible to round up one other member of the Gold and Green baseball squad. True, a hundred loyal alumni were in the stands, but only bona fide students, of course, were eligible to play the game, and—the Faculty ruling had kept them at old Bannister!

"Here comes Ballard's Manager," spoke Beef McNaughton, as a brisk, clean-cut youth advanced, a yellow envelope in hand. "Why, he has a telegram. Do you suppose Skeet actually had brains enough to wire an explanation?"

"Telegram for Captain Brewster!" announced the Ballard collegian, giving the message to that surprised behemoth. "It was sent in my care—collect, and the sender, name of Wigglesworth, fired one to me personally, telling me to deliver this one to Captain Butch Brewster, and collect from Team Manager Hicks—he surely didn't bother to save money! I've been out of town, and just got back to the campus; of course, the telegrams could not be delivered to anyone but me, hence the delay."

Big Butch, thanking the Ballard Team Manager, and assuring him that the charges he had paid would be advanced to him after the game, ripped open the yellow envelope, and drew out the message. Like a thunder-storm gathering on the horizon, a dark expression came to good Butch's countenance, and when he had perused the lengthy telegram, he transfixed the startled and bewildered T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., with an angry glare:

"Bonehead!" he raged, apparently controlling himself with a superhuman effort. "Oh, you lunatic, you wretch, villain—you—you—"

To the supreme amazement and dismay of the puzzled Hicks, Beef, next in line, after he had scanned Skeet's telegram, followed Butch's example, for he glowered at the perturbed youth, and heaped condemnations on his devoted head. And so on down the line on the bench, until Monty, Roddy, Biff, Ichabod, Don, and Cherub, reading the message, joined in gazing indignantly at their gladsome Team Manager, who, as the eight arose en masse and advanced on him, sought to flee the wrath to come.

"Safety first!" quoth T, Haviland Hicks, Jr. "'Mine not to reason why, mine but to haste and fly,' or—be crushed! Ouch! Beef, Monty—have a heart!"

Captured by Beef and Monty Merriweather, as he frantically scrambled up the steps of the concrete dug-out, the grinning Hicks was held in the firm grasp of that behemoth, Butch Brewster, aided by the skyscraper Ichabod, while Cherub Challoner thrust the telegram before his eyes. In words of fire that burned themselves into his brain—something his colleagues denied he possessed—T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., saw the explanation of Skeet Wigglesworth's missing the train from Baltimore that A. M. Dazed, the sunny youth read the message on which over-charges must be paid:

"Hicks—you bonehead! The time-table of the C.N. & Q. you gave me was an old one—schedule revised two weeks ago! Train now leaves Balto. at 6.55 A.M.! When we got to station at 7.05 A.M. she had went! No train to Ballard till night! I and subs, had to wire Bannister for money to get back on! You mis-manager—the head-work you boasted of is boneheadwork! Pay the charges on this, you brainless insect! I'll send it to Butch, for you'd never show it to him if I sent it to you! Indignantly—

"SKEET."

"Mis-manager is right!" seethed Captain Butch, for once in his campus career really wrathy at the lovable Hicks. "We are in a fix—eight players, and the crowd howling for the game to start. Oh, I could jump overboard, and drag you with me!"

"Bonehead! Bonehead!" chorused the Gold and Green players, indignantly. "Gave Skeet an out-of-date time-table—never looked at the date! Let's drag him out before the crowd, and announce to them his brilliant headwork!"

Captain Butch, "up against it," to employ a slightly slang expression, gazed across Ballard Field. In the stands, the students responding thunderously to their cheer-leaders' megaphoned requests, roared, "Play ball! Play ball! Play ball!" Gay pennants and banners fluttered in the glorious sunshine of the June day. It was a bright scene, but its glory awakened no happiness in the heart of the Bannister leader, as his gaze wandered to the somewhat flabbergasted expression on the cheery Hicks' face. That inevitably sunny youth, however, managed to conjure up a faint resemblance of his Cheshire cat grin, and following his usual habit of letting nothing daunt his gladsome spirit, he croaked feebly: "Oh, just leave it to Hicks! I will—"

"Play the game!" thundered Butch, inspired. "Beef, see the umpire and say we'll be ready as soon as we get Hicks into togs-show him the telegram, and explain our delay! I'll shift Monty from the outfield to Skeet's job at short, and put this diluted imitation of something human in the field, to do his worst. Come to the field-house, you poor fish—"

"Oh, Butch, I can't—I just can't!" protested the alarmed Hicks, helpless, as the big athlete towed him from the trench, "I—I can't play ball, and I don't want to be shown up before all that mob! It's all right at Bannister, in class-games, but—Oh, can't you play the game with eight fellows?"

"That is just what we intend to do!" said Butch, with grim humor. "But—we'll have a dummy in the ninth position, to make the people believe we have a full nine! Cheer up, Hicks—'In the bright lexicon of youth there ain't no such word as fail,' you say! As for your making a fool of yourself, you haven't brains enough to be classed as one! Now—you'll pay dearly for your bonehead play."

Ten minutes later, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., as agitated as a prima donna making her debut with the Metropolitan: Opera Company, decorated the Bannister bench, arrayed in one of the substitutes' baseball suits. It was too large for his splinter-structure, so that it flapped grotesquely, giving him a startling resemblance to a scarecrow escaped from a cornfield. With the thermometer of his spirits registering zero, the dismayed youth, whose punishment was surely fitting the crime, heard the Umpire bellow:

"Play ball! Batter up! Bannister at bat—Ballard in the field!"

Hicks, that sunny-souled youth, had often daydreamed of himself in a big game of baseball, for his college. He had vividly imagined a ninth inning crisis, three of the enemy on base, two out, and a long fly, good for a home-run, soaring over his head. How he had sprinted—back—back—and at the last second, reached high in the air, grabbing the soaring spheroid, and saving the game for his Alma Mater! Often, too, he had stepped up to bat in the final frame, with two out, one on base, and Bannister a run behind. With the vast crowd silent and breathless, he had walloped the ball, over the left-field fence, and jogged around the bases, thrilling to the thunderous cheers of his comrades. But now—

"Oooo!" shivered Hicks, as though he had just stepped beneath an icy shower-bath. "I wish I could run away. I just know they'll knock every ball to me, and I couldn't catch one with a sheriff and posse!"

However, since, despite the blithesome Hicks' lack of confidence, it was that sunny Senior, after all, whom fate—or fortune, accordingly as each nine viewed it—destined to be the hero of the Bannister-Ballard Championship baseball contest, the game itself is shoved into such insignificance that it can be briefly chronicled by recording the events that led up to T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, self-prophesied "head-work."

Without Skeet Wigglesworth at shortstop, with the futile Hicks in right-field, and the confidence of the nine shaken, Captain Butch Brewster and the Gold and Green players went into the big game, unable to shake off the feeling that they would be defeated. And when Pitcher Don Carterson, in his half of the frame, passed the first two Ballard batters, the belief deepened to conviction. However, a fast double play and a long fly ended the inning without damage, and Bannister, likewise, had failed to make an impression on the score-board. In the second, Don promptly showed that he was striving to rival the late Cy Morgan, of the Athletics, for he promptly hit two batters and passed the third, whereupon, as sporting-writers express it, he was "derricked" by Captain Butch.

Placing the deposed twirler in left field, Captain Brewster, as a last resort, believing the game hopelessly lost, with his star pitcher having failed, and his relief slabmen, thanks to Hicks, mislaid en route, sent out to the box one Ichabod Crane, brought in from the position given to Don Carterson. This cadaverous, skyscraper Senior, who always announced, himself as originating, "Back at Bedwell Center, Pa., where I come from—" was well known to fame as the "Champion Horse-Shoe Pitcher of Bucks County," but his baseball pitching was rather uncertain; like the girl in the nursery jingle, Ichabod, as a twirler, "When he was good, he was very, very good, and when he was wild, he was horrid!" Like Christy Mathewson, after he had pitched a few balls, he knew whether or not he was in shape for the game, and so did the spectators. With terrific speed and bewildering curves, Ichabod would have made a star, but his wildness prevented, and only on very rare days could he control the ball.

Luckily for old Bannister's chances of victory and the Championship, this was one of the elongated Ichabod's rare days. He ambled into the box, with the bases full, and promptly struck out a batter. The next rolled to first, forcing out the runner at home, while the third hitter under Ichabod's regime drove out a long fly to center-field. Thus the game settled to one of the most memorable contests that Ballard Field had ever witnessed, a pitchers' battle between the awkward, bean-pole youth from "Bedwell Center, Pa.," and Bob Forsythe, the crack Ballard twirler. It was a fight long to be remembered, with hits as scarce as auks' eggs, and runs out of the reckoning, for six innings.

At the start of the seventh, with the Ballard rooters standing and thundering, "The lucky seventh! Ballard—win the game in the lucky seventh!" the score was 0-0. Only two hits had been made off Forsythe, of Ballard, whose change of pace had the Bannister nine at his mercy, and but three off Ichabod, who had superb control of his dazzling speed. T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., cavorting in right field, had made the only error of the contest, dropping an easy fly that fell into his hands after he had run bewilderedly in circles, when any good fielder could have stood still and captured it; however, since he got the ball to second in time to hold the runner at third, no harm resulted.

"Hold 'em, Bannister, hold 'em!" entreated Butch Brewster, as they went to the field at their end of the lucky seventh, not having scored. "Do your best, Hicks, old man—never mind their Jokes. If you can't catch the ball, just get it to second, or first, without delay! Pitch ball, Ichabod—three innings to hold 'em!"

But it was destined to be the lucky seventh for Ballard. An error on a hard chance, for Roddy Perkins, at third, placed a runner on first. Ichabod struck out a hitter, and the runner stole second, aided somewhat by the umpire. The next player flew out, sacrificing the runner to third; then—an easy fly traveled toward the paralyzed T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., one that anybody with the most infinitesimal baseball ability could have corralled, as Butch said, "with his eyes blindfolded, and his hands tied behind him!" But Hicks, who possessed absolutely no baseball talent, though he made a desperate try, succeeded in doing an European juggling act for five heartbreaking seconds, after which he let the law of gravity act on the sphere, so that it descended to terra firma. Hence, the "Lucky Seventh" ended with the score: Ballard, 1; Bannister, 0; and the Ballard cohorts in a state bordering on lunacy!

"Oh, I've done it now—I've lost the game and the Championship!" groaned the crushed Hicks, as he stumbled toward the Bannister bench. "First I made that bonehead play, giving Skeet an old time-table I had on hand, and not telling him to get one at the station. How was I to know the old railroad would change the schedule, within two weeks of this game? And now—I've made the error that gives Ballard the Championship. If I hadn't pulled that boner, Skeet would be here, and the regular right-fielder would have had that fly. What a glorious climax to my athletic career at old Bannister!"

Hicks' comrades were too generous, or heartbroken, to condemn the sorrowful youth, as he trailed to the dug-out, but the Ballard rooters had absolutely no mercy, and they panned him in regulation style. In fact, all through the game, Hicks expressed himself as being butchered by the fans to make a Ballard holiday, for he struck out with unfailing regularity at bat, and dropped everything in the field, so that the rooters jeered him, whenever he stepped to the plate, and—it was quite different from the good-natured ridicule of his comrades, back at old Bannister.

"Never mind, Hicks," said good Butch Brewster, brokenly, seeing how sorrow-stricken his sunny classmate was, "We'll beat 'em—yet! We bat this inning, and in the ninth maybe someone will knock a home-run for us, and tie the score."

The eighth Inning was the lucky one for the Gold and Green. Monty Merriweather opened with a clean two-base hit to left, and advanced to third on Biff Pemberton's sacrifice to short. Butch, trying to knock a home-run, struck out-a la "Cactus" Cravath in the World's Series; but the lanky Ichabod, endeavoring to bunt, dropped a Texas-Leaguer over second, and the score was tied, though the sky-scraper twirler was caught off base a moment later. And, though Ballard fought hard in the last of the eighth, Ichabod displayed big-league speed, and retired two hitters by the strike-out route, while the third popped out to first.

"The ninth Inning!" breathed Beef McNaughton, picking up his Louisville Slugger, as he strode to the plate. "Come on, boys—we will win the Championship right now. Get one run, and Ichabod will hold Ballard one more time!"

Perhaps the pachydermic Beef's grim attitude unnerved the wonderful Bob Forsythe, for he passed that elephantine youth. However, he regained his splendid control, and struck out Cherub Challoner on three pitched balls. After this, it was a shame to behold the Ballard first-baseman drop the ball, when Don Carterson grounded to third, and would have been thrown out with ease—with two on base, and one out, Roddy Perkins made a sharp single, on which the two runners advanced a base. Now, with the sacks filled, and with only one out—

"It's all over!" mourned Captain Butch Brewster, rocking back and forth on the bench. "Hicks—is—at—bat!"

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., his bat wobbling, and his knees acting in a similar fashion, refusing to support even that fragile frame, staggered toward the plate, like a martyr. A tremendous howl of unearthly joy went up from the stands, for Hicks had struck out every time yet.

"Three pitched balls, Bob!" was the cry. "Strike him out! It's all over but the shouting! He's scared to death, Forsythe—he can't hit a barn-door with a scatter-gun! One—two—three—out! Here's where Ballard wins the Championship."

Twice the grinning Bob Forsythe cut loose with blinding speed—twice the extremely alarmed Hicks dodged back, and waved a feeble Chautauqua salute at the ball he never even saw! Then—trying to "cut the inside corner" with a fast inshoot, Forsythe's control wavered a trifle, and T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., saw the ball streaking toward him! The paralyzed youth felt like a man about to be shot by a burglar. He could feel the bail thud against him, feel the terrific shock; and yet—a thought instinctively flashed on him, he remembered, in a flash, what a tortured Monty Merriweather had shouted, as he wobbled to bat:

"Get a base on balls, or—if you can't make a hit—get hit!"

If he got hit—it meant a run forced in, as the bases were full! That, in all probability, would give old Bannister the Championship, for Ichabod was invincible. It is not likely that the dazed Hicks thought all this out, and weighed it against the agony of getting hit by Forsythe's speed. The truth is, the paralyzed youth was too petrified by fear to dodge, and that before he could avoid it, the speeding spheroid crashed against his noble brow with a sickening impact.

All went black before him, T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., pale and limp, crumpled, and slid to the ground, senseless; therefore, he failed to hear the roar from the Bannister bench, from the loyal Gold and Green rooters in the stands, as big Beef lumbered across the plate with what proved later to be the winning run. He did not hear the Umpire shout: "Take your base!"

"What's the matter with our Hicks—he's all right! What's the matter with our Hicks—he's all right! He was never a star in the baseball game, But he won the Championship just the same— What's the matter with our Hicks-he's all right!"

"Honk! Honk!" Old Dan Flannagan's jitney-bus, rattling up the driveway, bearing back to the Bannister campus the victorious Gold and Green nine, and the State Intercollegiate Baseball Championship, though the hour was midnight, found every student on the grass before the Senior Fence! Over three hundred leather-lunged youths, aided by the Bannister Band, and every known noise-making device, hailed "The Dove," as that unseaworthy craft halted before them, with the baseball nine inside, and on top. However, the terrific tumult stilled, as the bewildered collegians caught the refrain from the exuberant players:

"He was never a star in the baseball game— But he won the Championship just the same— What's the matter with our Hicks—he's all right!"

"Hicks did what?" shrieked Skeezicks McCracken, voicing through a megaphone the sentiment of the crowd. Captain Butch had simply telegraphed the final score, so old Bannister was puzzled to hear the team lauding T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., who, still white and weak, with a bandage around his classic forehead, maintained a phenomenal quiet, atop of "The Dove," leaning against Butch Brewster.

"Fellows," shouted Butch, despite Hicks' protest, rising to his feet on the roof of the "jit."—"T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., today won the game and the Championship! Listen—"

The vast crowd of erstwhile clamorous youths stood spellbound, as Captain Butch Brewster, in graphic sentences, described the game—Don Carterson's failure, Ichabod's sensational pitching, Hicks' errors, and—the wonderful manner in which the futile youth had won the Championship! As little Skeet Wigglesworth and the five substitutes, who had returned that afternoon, had spread the story of Hicks' bonehead play, old Bannister had turned out to ridicule and jeer good-naturedly the sunny youth, but now they learned that Hicks had been forced by his own mistake into the Big Game, and had won it! Of course, his comrades knew it had been through no ability of his, but the knowledge that he had been knocked senseless by Forsythe's great speed, and had suffered so that his college might score, thrilled them.

"What's the matter with Hicks?" thundered Thor, he who at one time would have called this riot foolishness, and forgetting that the nine had just chanted the response to this query.

"He's all right!" chorused the collegians, in ecstasy.

"Who's all right?" demanded John Thorwald, his blond head towering over those of his comrades. To him, now, there was nothing silly about this performance!

"Hicks! Hicks! Hicks!" came the shout, and the band fanfared, while the exultant collegians shouted, sang, whistled, and created an indescribable tumult with their noise-making devices. For five minutes the ear-splitting din continued, a wonderful tribute to the lovable, popular youth, and then it stilled so suddenly that the result was startling, for—T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., swaying on his feet arose, and stood on the roof of the "jit."

With that heart-warming Cheshire cat grin on his cherubic countenance, the irrepressible Hicks seized a Louisville Slugger, assumed a Home-Run Baker batting pose, and shouted to his breathlessly waiting comrades:

"Fellows, I vowed I would win that baseball game and the Championship for my Alma Mater by my headwork! With the bases full, and the score a tie, the Ballard pitcher hit me in the head with the ball, forcing in the run that won for old Ballard—now, if that wasn't headwork—"



CHAPTER XIX

BANNISTER GIVES HICKS A SURPRISE PARTY

"We have come to the close of our college days. Golden campus years soon must end; From Bannister we shall go our ways— And friend shall part from friend! On our Alma Mater now we gaze, And our eyes are filled with tears; For we've come to the close of our college days, And the end of our campus years!"

Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., Bannister, '92; Yale, '96, and Pittsburgh millionaire "Steel King," stood at the window of Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, room, his arm across the shoulders of that sunny-souled Senior, his only son and heir. Father and son stood, gazing down at the campus. On the Gym steps was a group of Seniors, singing songs of old Bannister, songs tinged with sadness. Up to Hicks' windows, on the warm June: night, drifted the 1916 Class Ode, to the beautiful tune, "A Perfect Day." Over before the Science Hall, a crowd of joyous alumni laughed over narratives of their campus escapades. Happy undergraduates, skylarking on the campus, celebrated the end of study, and gazed with some awe at the Seniors, in cap and gown, suddenly transformed into strange beings, instead of old comrades and college-mates.

"'The close of our college days, and the end of our campus years—!'" quoted Mr. Hicks, a mist before his eyes as he gazed at the scene. "In a few days, Thomas, comes the final parting from old Bannister—I know it will be hard, for I had to leave the dear old college, and also Yale. But you have made a splendid record in your studies, you have been one of the most popular fellows here, and—you have vastly pleased your Dad, by winning your B in the high-jump."

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, last study-sprint was at an end, the final Exams. of his Senior year had been passed with what is usually termed flying colors; and to the whole-souled delight of the lovable youth, he and little Theophilus Opperdyke, the Human Encyclopedia, had, as Hicks chastely phrased it, "run a dead heat for the Valedictory!" So close had their final averages been that the Faculty, after much consideration, decided to announce at the Commencement exercises that the two Seniors had tied for the highest collegiate honors, and everyone was satisfied with the verdict. So, now it was all ended; the four years of study, athletics, campus escapades, dormitory skylarking—the golden years of college life, were about to end for 1919. Commencement would officially start on the morrow, but tonight, in the Auditorium, would be held the annual Athletic Association meeting, when those happy athletes who had won their B during the year would have it presented, before the assembled collegians, by one-time gridiron, track, and diamond heroes of old Bannister.

And—the ecstatic Hicks would have his track B, his white letter, won in the high-jump, thanks to Caesar Napoleon's assistance, awarded him by his beloved Dad, the greatest all-round athlete that ever wore the Gold and Green! Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., en route to New Haven and Yale in his private car, "Vulcan," had reached town that day, together with other members of Bannister College, Class of '92. They, as did all the old grads., promptly renewed past memories and associations by riding up to College Hill in Dan Flannagan's jitney-bus—a youthful, hilarious crowd of alumni. Former students, alumni, parents of graduating Seniors, friends, sweethearts—every train would bring its quota. The campus would again throb and pulsate with that perennial quickening—Commencement. Three days of reunions, Class Day exercises, banquets, and other events, then the final exercises, and—T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., would be an alumnus!

"It's like Theophilus told Thor, last fall, Dad," said the serious Hicks. "You know what Shakespeare said: 'This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong; To love that well which thou must leave ere long.' Now that I soon shall leave old Bannister, I—I wish I had studied more, had done bigger things for my Alma Mater! And for you, Dad, too; I've won a B, but perhaps, had I trained and exercised more, I might have annexed another letter—still; hello, what's Butch hollering—?"

Big Butch Brewster, his pachydermic frame draped in his gown, and his mortar-board cap on his head, for the Seniors were required to wear their regalia during Commencement week, was bellowing through a megaphone, as he stood on the steps of Bannister Hall, and Mr. Hicks, with his cheerful son, listened:

"Everybody—Seniors, Undergrads., Alumni—in the Auditorium at eight sharp! We are going to give Mr. Hicks and T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., a surprise party—don't miss the fun!"

"Now, just what does Butch mean, Dad?" queried the bewildered Senior. "Something is in the wind. For two days, the fellows have had a secret from me—they whisper and plot, and when I approach, loudly talk of athletics, or Commencement! Say, Butch—Butch—I ain't a-comin' tonight, unless you explain the mystery."

"Oh, yes, you be, old sport!" roared Butch, from the campus, employing the megaphone, "or you don't get your letter! Say, Hicks, one sweetly solemn thought attacks me—old Bannister is puzzling you with a mystery, instead of vice versa, as is usually the case."

"Well, Thomas," said Mr. Hicks, his face lighted by a humorous, kindly smile, as he heard the storm of good-natured jeers at Hicks, Jr., that greeted Butch Brewster's fling, "I'll stroll downtown, and see if any of my old comrades came on the night express. I'll see you at the Athletic Association meeting, for I believe I am to hand you the B. I can't imagine what this 'surprise party' is, but I don't suppose it will harm us. It will surely be a happy moment, son, when I present you with the athletic letter you worked so hard to win."

When T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, beloved Dad had gone, his firm stride echoing down the corridor, that blithesome, irrepressible collegian, whom old Bannister had come to love as a generous, sunny-souled youth, stood again by the window, gazing out at the campus. Now, for the first time, he fully realized what a sad occasion a college Commencement really is—to those who must go forth from their Alma Mater forever. With almost the force of a staggering blow, Hicks suddenly saw how it would hurt to leave the well-loved campus and halls of old Bannister, to go from those comrades of his golden years. In a day or so, he must part from good Butch, Pudge, Beef, Ichabod, Monty, Roddy, Cherub, loyal little Theophilus and all his classmates of '19, as well as from his firm friends of the undergraduates. It would be the parting from the youths of his class that would cost him the greatest regret. Four years they had lived together the care-free campus life. From Freshmen to Seniors they had grown and developed together, and had striven for 1919 and old Bannister, while a love for their Alma Mater had steadily possessed their hearts. And now soon they must sing, "Vale, Alma Mater!" and go from the campus and corridors, as Jack Merritt, Heavy Hughes, Biff McCabe, and many others had done before them.

Of course, they would return to old Bannister. There would be alumni banquets at mid-year and Commencement, with glad class reunions each year. They would come back for the big games of the football or baseball season. But it would never be the same. The glad, care-free, golden years of college life come but once, and they could never live them, as of old.

"Caesar's Ghost!" ejaculated T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., making a dive for his beloved banjo, as he awakened to the startling fact that for some time he had been intensely serious. "This will never, never do. I must maintain my blithesome buoyancy to the end, and entertain old Bannister with my musical ability. Here goes."

Assuming a striking pose, a la troubadour, at the open window, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., a somewhat paradoxical figure, his splinter-structure enshrouded in the gown, the cap on his classic head, this regalia symbolic of dignity, and the torturesome banjo in his grasp, twanged a ragtime accompaniment, and to the bewilderment of the old Grads on the campus, as well as the wrath of 1919, he roared in his fog-horn voice:

"Oh, I love for to live in the country! And I love for to live on the farm! I love for to wander in the grass-green fields— Oh, a country life has the charm! I love for to wander in the garden— Down by the old haystack; Where the pretty little chickens go 'Kick-Kack-Kackle!' And the little docks go 'Quack! Quack!'"

From the Seniors on the Gym steps, their dignified song rudely shattered by this rollicking saenger-fest, came a storm of protests; to the unbounded delight of the alumni, watching the scene with interest, shouts, jeers, whistles, and cat-calls greeted Hicks' minstrelsy:

"Tear off his cap and gown—he's a disgrace to '19!"

"Shades of Schumann-Heink—give that calf more rope!"

"Ye gods—how long must we endure—that?"

"Hicks, a Senior—nobody home—can that noise!"

"Shoot him at sunrise! Where's his Senior dignity?"

Big Butch Brewster, referring to his watch, bellowed through the megaphone that it was nearly eight o'clock, and loudly suggested that they forcibly terminate Hicks' saengerfest, and spare the town police force a riot call to the campus, by transporting the pestiferous youth to the Auditorium, for his "surprise party." His idea finding favor, he, with Beef and Pudge, somewhat hampered by their gowns, lumbered up the stairway of Bannister, and down the third-floor corridor to the offending Hicks' boudoir, followed by a yelling, surging crowd of Seniors and underclassmen. They invaded the graceless youth's room, much to the pretended alarm of that torturesome collegian, who believed that the entire student-body of old Bannister had foregathered to wreak vengeance on his devoted head.

"Mercy! Have a heart, fellows!" plead T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., helpless in the clutches of Butch, Beef, and Pudge, "I won't never do it no more, no time! Say, this is too much—much too much—too much much too much—I, Oh—help—aid—succor—relief—assistance—"

"To the Auditorium with the wretch!" boomed Butch; and the splinter-youth was borne aloft, on his broad shoulders, assisted by Beef McNaughton. They transported the grinning Hicks down the corridor, while fifty noisy youths, howling, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!" tramped after them. Downstairs and across the campus the hilarious procession marched, and into the Auditorium, where the students and alumni were gathering for the awarding of the athletic B. A thunderous shout went up, as T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., was carried to the stage and deposited in a chair.

"Hicks! Hicks! Hicks! We've got a surprise for—Hicks!"

"Now, just what have I did to deserve all these?" grinned that happy-go-lucky youth, puzzled, nevertheless. "Well, time will tell, so all I can do is to possess my soul with impatience; old Bannister has a mystery for me, this trip!"

In fifteen minutes, the Athletic Association meeting opened. On the stage, beside its officers, were those athletes, including T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., who were to receive that coveted reward—their B, together with a number of one-time famous Bannister gridiron, track, basketball, and diamond stars. Each youth was to receive his monogram from some ex-athlete who once wore the Gold and Green, and Hicks' beloved Dad—Bannister's greatest hero—was to present his son with the letter.

There were speeches; the Athletic Association's President explained the annual meeting, former Bannister students and athletic idols told of past triumphs on Bannister Field; the football Championship banner, and the baseball pennant were flaunted proudly, and each team-captain of the year was called upon to talk. Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., a great favorite on the campus, delivered a ringing speech, an appeal to the undergraduates for clean living, and honorable sportsmanship, and then:

"We now come to the awarding of the athletic B," stated the President. "The Secretary will call first the name of the athlete, and then the alumnus who will present him with the letter. In the name of the Athletic Association of old Bannister, I congratulate those fellows who are now to be rewarded for their loyalty to their Alma Mater!"

Thrilled, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., watched his comrades, as they responded to their names, and had the greatest glory, the B, placed in their hands by past Bannister athletic heroes. Butch, Beef, Roddy, Monty, Ichabod, Biff, Hefty, Tug, Buster, Deacon Radford, Cherub, Don, Skeet, Thor, who had won the hammer-throw. These, and many others, having earned the award by playing in three-fourths of a season's games on the eleven or the nine, or by winning a first place in some track event, stepped forward, and were rewarded. Some, as good Butch, had gained their B many times, but the fact that this was their last letter, made the occasion a sad one. Every name was called but that of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., and that perturbed youth wondered at the omission, when the President spoke:

"The last name," he said, smiling, "is that of Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr., and we are glad to have his father present the letter to his son, as Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., is with us. However, we Bannister fellows have prepared a surprise party for our lovable comrade, and I beg your patience awhile, as I explain."

Graphically, Dad Pendleton described the wonderful all-round athletic record made by Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., while at old Bannister, and sketched briefly but vividly his phenomenal record at Yale; he told of Mr. Hicks' great ambition, for his only son, Thomas, to follow in his footsteps—to be a star athlete, and shatter the marks made by his Dad. Then he reminded the Bannister students of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, athletic fiascos, hilarious and otherwise, of three years. He explained how that cheery youth, grinning good-humoredly at his comrades' jeers, had been in earnest, striving to realize his father's ambition. As the spellbound collegians and grads. listened, Dad chronicled Hicks' dogged persistence, and how he finally, in his Senior year, won his track B in the high-jump. Then he described the biggest game of the past football season, the contest that brought the Championship to old Bannister. The youths and alumni heard how T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., made a great sacrifice, for the greater goal; how, after training faithfully in secret for a year, hoping sometime to win a game for his Alma Mater, he cheerfully sacrificed his chance to tie the score by a drop-kick, and became the pivotal part of a fake-kick play that won for the Gold and Green.

"I have left Hicks' name until last," said Dad, with a smile, "because tonight we have a surprise party for our sunny comrade, and for his Dad. In the past, the eligibility rule, as regards the football and baseball B, has been—an athlete must play on the 'Varsity in three-fourths of the season's games. But, just before the Hamilton game, last fall, the Advisory Board of the Athletic Association amended this rule.

"We decided to submit to the required two-thirds majority vote of the students this plan, inasmuch as many athletes, toiling and sacrificing all season for their college, never get to win their letter, yet deserve that reward for their loyalty, we suggested that Bannister imitate the universities. Anyone sent into the Yale-Harvard game, you know, wins his H or Y. If one team is safely ahead, a lot of scrubs are run into the scrimmage, to give them their letter. Therefore, we—the Advisory Board—made this rule: 'Any athlete taking part, for any period of time whatsoever, in the Ballard football or baseball game as a regular member of the first team shall be eligible for his Gold or Green B. This rule, upon approval of the students, to be effective from September 25!'

"Now," continued the Athletic Association President, "we decided to keep this new ruling a secret until the present, for this reason: Many good football and baseball players, not making the first teams, lack the loyalty to stick on the scrubs, and others, not as brilliant, but with more college spirit, give their best until the season's end. We knew that if we announced this rule last fall, several slackers, who had quit the squad, would come out again, just on the hope of getting sent into the Ballard game, for their B. This would not be fair to those who loyally stuck to the scrubs. So we did not announce the rule until the year closed, and then a practically unanimous vote of the students made the rule effective from September 25. So—all athletes who took part in the Ballard football game, last fall, for any period of time whatsoever, are eligible for the gold B, and the same, as regards the green letter, applies to the Ballard baseball game this spring."

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., gasped. Slowly, the glorious truth dawned on the happy-go-lucky Senior—he had been sent into the Bannister-Ballard football game; the crucial and deciding play had turned on him, hence he had won his gold letter! And thanks to his brilliant "mismanaging" of the nine, losing shortstop Skeet Wigglesworth and the substitutes, he had played the entire nine innings of the Ballard-Bannister baseball contest, and, therefore, was eligible for his green B. In a dazed condition, he heard Dad Pendleton saying: