Captain Butch Brewster, big Beef McNaughton, the Phillyloo Bird--that flamingo-like Senior--and little Theophilus Opperdyke, the timorous boner whom Bannister College called the "Human Encyclopedia," roosted on the sacred Senior Fence, between the Gymnasium and the Administration Building. A gloomy silence, like a somber mantle, enshrouded the four members of '19, as they listened to a rollicking parody on, "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?" chanted by some Juniors in Nordyke, with T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., as the object of solicitude. Nor did the melancholy youths respond to the queries hurled down at them from the dormitories' windows:
"Say, Butch Brewster, where is that crazy Hicks?"
"Beef, ain't our Hicks a-comin' back here no more?"
"Hello, Phillyloo, any word from our Hicks yet?"
"Ahoy there, Theophilus, where is Hicks, the Missing?"
The seven-thirty study-hour bell was ringing, its mellow chimes sounding from the Administration Building tower. From the windows of the dormitories gleams of light shot athwart the darkness. Over in Creighton Hall, the abode of Freshmen, a silence reigned, but in Smithson, where the Sophomores roomed, Nordyke, home of the Juniors, and Bannister, haunt of the solemn Seniors, pandemonium obtained. In these dorm. rooms and corridors that night, just as in the class-rooms, or on the campus, and Bannister Field that day, there was but one topic. Whenever two students met, came the query inevitable:
"Where is Hicks? Isn't Hicks coming back this year?"
The Freshmen, bewildered, quite naturally, at the furore made over one missing student, asked, "Who is Hicks?" Seeking information from upper-classmen they received innumerable tales, in the nature of Iliad and Odyssey, concerning T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.; they heard of his campus exploits, such as his originating The Big Brotherhood of Bannister, and they laughed, at recitals of his athletic fiascos. They were told of his inevitably sunny nature, his loyal comradeship, his generous disposition, and as a result, the Freshmen, too, became intensely interested in the all-important campus problem: "Where is T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.?"
Little Theophilus Opperdyke, whose big-rimmed spectacles, high forehead, and bushy hair gave him an intensely owlish appearance, sighed tremendously, stared solemnly at his class-mates, and became the author of a most astounding statement: "I--I can't study," quavered the "boner," he whose tender devotion to his books was a campus tradition, and whose loyalty to his firm friend, the blithesome Hicks, was as that of Damon to Pythias, "I just _can't_ care about my studies, without Hicks here! Somehow, it--it doesn't seem like old times, on the campus."