"It was Theophilus' duty to tell!" spoke Butch, hiding a grin, for the grind was so frightened, "and yours, Hicks, knowing as you do how we need you, with Thor hurt! You graceless wretch, you aren't usually so like ye modest violet! Why didn't you inform us, then swagger and say, 'Oh, just leave it to Hicks, he'll win the game with a drop-kick?' Now, you come with me, and I'll look over your samples. If you've got the goods, it's highly probable you'll get your chance, in the Ballard game; and I'm _glad_, old man, for your sake. I know what it would mean, if you win it! But--now that the '_mystery_' is solved, what's that about your being a 'Class Kid,' of Yale, '96?" "That's easy!" grinned T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., his arm across Theophilus' shoulders, "I was the first boy born to any member of Yale, '96; it is the custom of classes graduating at Yale to call such a baby the class kid! Naturally, the members of old Eli, Class of 1896, are vastly interested in me. Hence, my Dad wrote they'd be tickled if I won a big game for Bannister with a field-goal!" A moment of silence, Theophilus Opperdyke, gathering from Hicks' arm, across his shoulders, that the cheery youth was not so awfully wrathful at his base betrayal, adjusted his big-rimmed spectacles, and stared owlishly at Hicks. "Hicks, you--you are not angry?" he quavered. "You are not sorry. I--I told--" "_Sorry_?" quoth T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., "Class Kid," of Yale, '96, with a Cheshire cat grin, "_sorry_? I should say _not_--I wanted it to be known to Butch, and Coach Corridan, but I got all shivery when I tried to confess, and I--couldn't! Nay, Theophilus, you faithful friend, I'm so _glad_, old man, that beside yours truly, the celebrated Pollyanna resembles Niobe, weeping for her lost children." CHAPTER XIII HICKS--CLASS KID--YALE '96 "Brekka-kek-kek--Co-Ax--Co-Ax! Brekka-kek-kek--Co-Ax--Co-Ax! Whoop-up! Parabaloo! Yale! Yale! Yale! _Hicks! Hicks! Hicks_!" T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., swathed in a cumbersome Gold and Green football blanket, and crouching on the side-line, like some historic Indian, felt a thrill shake his splinter-structure, as the yell of "old Eli" rolled from the stand, across Bannister Field. In the midst of the Gold and Green flags and pennants, fluttering in the section assigned the Bannister cohorts, he gazed at a big banner of Blue, with white lettering: YALE UNIVERSITY--CLASS OF 1896 "Oh, Butch," gasped Hicks, torn between fear and hope, "just listen to that. Think of all those Yale men in the stand with my Dad! Oh, suppose I do get sent in to try for a drop-kick!"