Across the Quadrangle, from the room of the Caruso-like Juniors, accompanied by a melodious banjo-twanging, drifted:
"Though thy halls we leave forever Sadly from the campus turn; Yet our love shall fail thee never For old Bannister we'll yearn!
"'Bannister, Bannister, hail, all hail!' Echoes softly from each heart; We'll be ever loyal to thee Till we from life shall part."
Strangely enough, the behemoth Thorwald was not thinking so much of having to give up his studies, of having to lay aside his books and take up again the implements of toil. He was not pondering on the cruelty of fate in making him abandon, at least temporarily, his goal; instead, his thoughts turned, somehow, to his experiences at old Bannister, to the football scrimmages, the noisy sessions in "Delmonico's Annex," the college dining-hall, to the skylarking he had often watched in the dormitories. He thought, too, of the happy, care-free youths, remembering Hicks, good Butch Brewster, loyal little Theophilus; and as he reflected, he heard those Juniors, over the way, singing. Just now they were chanting that exquisitely beautiful Hawaiian melody, "Aloha Oe," or "Farewell to Thee," making the words tell of parting from their Alma Mater. There was something in the refrain that seemed to break down Thor's wall of reserve, to melt away his aloofness, and he caught himself listening eagerly as they sang.
Somehow he felt no desire to condemn those care-free youths, to call their singing silly foolishness, to say they were wasting their time and their fathers' money. Queer, but he actually liked to hear them sing, he realized he had come to listen for their saengerfests. Now that he had to leave college, for the first time he began to ponder on what he must leave. Not alone books and study, but--
As he stood there, an ache in his throat, and an awful sorrow overwhelming him, with the richly blended voices of the happy Juniors drifting across to him, chanting a song of old Ballard, big Thor murmured softly:
"What did little Theophilus say? What was it Shakespeare wrote? Oh, I have it:
"'This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong-- To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.'"
"There's a hole in the bottom of the sea, And we'll put Bannister in that hole! In that hole--in--that--hole-- Oh, we'll put Bannister in that hole!"