"
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.
Pages:
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202