"Oh, I say, Deke Radford, Coach, and Butch," Hicks chortled, getting the attention of that triumvirate as well as that of the others in the room, "remember up in Camp Bannister, in the sleep-shack, when Coach Corridan outlined a smashing full-back he wanted?"
"Sure!" smiled Deke. "What of it, Hicks?"
Then T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., that care-free, lovable, irrepressible youth, whose chance to swagger before this same trio had been postponed so long and seemingly lost forever, satiated his fun-loving soul and reaped his reward. Calling their attention to Thor, the Prodigious Prodigy, and asking them to remember his playing against Latham that day, the sunny Senior strutted before them vaingloriously.
"Oh, I told you just to leave it to Hicks!" he declared, grinning happily. "I promised to round up an unstoppable fullback, a Gargantuan Hercules, and I did! Just think of what he will do to Hamilton and Ballard in the big games! As I have often told you, _always_--leave It to Hicks!"
"Oh, what we'll do to Ballard Will surely be a shame! We'll push their team clear off the field And win the football game!"
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., one night three days after the first big game, that with Hamilton, a week following Thor's great awakening in the Latham game, sat in his cozy room, having assumed his favorite position--chair tilted back at a perilous angle and feet thrust atop of the radiator. The versatile youth, having just composed a song with which to encourage Bannister elevens in the future, was reading it aloud, when his mind was torpedoed by a most startling thought.
"Land o' Goshen!" reflected the sunny-souled Senior, aghast. "I haven't twanged my ole banjo and held forth with a saengerfest for a coon's age! I surely can do so now without arousing Butch to wrath. Thor has awakened, Hamilton is walloped, and Bannister will surely win the Championship! Everything is happy, an' de goose hangs high, so here goes!"
Holding his banjo _à la_ troubadour, the blithesome Hicks, who as a Senior was harassed by no study-hours or inspections, strode from his room and out into the corridor, up and down which he majestically paced, like a sentinel on his beat, twanging his beloved banjo with abandon, and roaring in his foghorn, subterranean voice: