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?"