Big Butch Brewster, to whom the _billet-doux_ was addressed in T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, familiar scrawl, tore open the envelope, and while the squad listened, he read aloud the message left by that sunny-souled youth; "DEAR BUTCH: "Coach Corridan will have to use the alarm clock from now on! I'm called away on business. See that my stuff gets to Bannister O.K. Stow it in the room next to yours. I'll be back at college some time in the next century. Give my _adieux_ to Coach Corridan and the squad. "Yours truthfully, "T. HAVILAND HICKS, JR. "P.S.: Tell Coach Corridan he should worry--_not_! I'm hot on the trail of a fullback that will make Ted Coy at his coyest look like the paralyzed inmate of an old man's home. Just leave it to Hicks!" CHAPTER III HICKS' PRODIGIOUS PRODIGY "Has anybody here seen our Hicks? _H-i-c-k-s_! Has anybody here seen our Hicks? If you've seen him, answer, 'Yes!' He's tall and slim, and he wears a grin, And his banjo-thumping is a sin. Has _anybody_ here seen our Hicks-- Hicks--and his old banjo?" Captain Butch Brewster, big Beef McNaughton, the Phillyloo Bird--that flamingo-like Senior--and little Theophilus Opperdyke, the timorous boner whom Bannister College called the "Human Encyclopedia," roosted on the sacred Senior Fence, between the Gymnasium and the Administration Building. A gloomy silence, like a somber mantle, enshrouded the four members of '19, as they listened to a rollicking parody on, "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?" chanted by some Juniors in Nordyke, with T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., as the object of solicitude. Nor did the melancholy youths respond to the queries hurled down at them from the dormitories' windows: "Say, Butch Brewster, where is that crazy Hicks?" "Beef, ain't our Hicks a-comin' back here no more?" "Hello, Phillyloo, any word from our Hicks yet?" "Ahoy there, Theophilus, where is Hicks, the Missing?" The seven-thirty study-hour bell was ringing, its mellow chimes sounding from the Administration Building tower. From the windows of the dormitories gleams of light shot athwart the darkness. Over in Creighton Hall, the abode of Freshmen, a silence reigned, but in Smithson, where the Sophomores roomed, Nordyke, home of the Juniors, and Bannister, haunt of the solemn Seniors, pandemonium obtained. In these dorm. rooms and corridors that night, just as in the class-rooms, or on the campus, and Bannister Field that day, there was but one topic. Whenever two students met, came the query inevitable: "Where is Hicks? Isn't Hicks coming back this year?"