Now that John Thorwald had been startled into
realizing that he loved his college and had been saved from having to
leave, now that he played football for his Alma Mater, and Bannister's
hopes of the Championship were roseate, the blithesome Hicks had abandoned
himself to a golden existence of Beefsteak Busts downtown at Jerry's,
entertaining jolly comrades in his cozy room, and pestering the campus with
his banjo and ridiculous imitations of Sheerluck Holmes, the Dachshund
Detective. Big Butch Brewster, lecturing him for his care-free ways, as
futilely as he had done for three years past, gave up in despair.
"I might as well be showing moving-pictures to the inmates of a blind
asylum," he growled on one occasion, "as to persuade you to quit acting
like a lunatic! You, a Senior--acting like an escaped inhabitant of
Matteawan! Bah!"
Big Butch Brewster, drawing a chair up to the davenport, assumed the manner
of a physician toward a recalcitrant patient, while Beef carefully stowed
the banjo in the closet and Deacon Radford, an interested spectator, sat
on the bed. The happy-go-lucky Hicks, at a loss to account for the strange
expressions of his comrades, tried to arise, but the football captain
pinned him down with one hand.
"Seriously, Hicks," spoke Butch, "your saengerfest came at a lamentably
inopportune time! I regret to Inform you that old Bannister faces another
problem, with regard to Thor, and unless it is solved, I fear--"
"Thor has balked again?" gasped the dazed Hicks, whom Butch now allowed to
sit up, as he showed interest.
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