"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!"
Theophilus turned from the window, and looked despairingly at that young Colossus, Thor. The behemoth Norwegian, oblivious to everything except the geometry problem now causing him to sweat, rested his massive head on his palms, elbows on the study-table, and was lost in the intricate labyrinth of "Let the line ABC equal the line BVD." The frail chair creaked under his ponderous bulk. On the table lay an unopened letter that had come in the night's mail, for, tackling one problem, the bulldog Hercules never let go his grip until he solved it, and nothing else, not even Theophilus, could secure his attention. Hence the Human Encyclopedia, trembling at the terrific importance of the mission entrusted to him, waited, thrilled by the Juniors' songs, which failed to penetrate Thor's mind.
"Oh, what _can_ I do?" breathed Theophilus, sitting down nervously on the edge of a chair and peering owlishly over his big-rimmed spectacles at the stolid John Thorwald. "I am sure that, in time, I can help Thor to--to know campus life better; but--_tomorrow_ is his last chance! He will be dropped from the squad, unless--"
As Thor at last leaned back and gazed at his little comrade, just then, to the tune of "My Old Kentucky Home," an augmented chorus drifted across the Quadrangle:
"And we'll sing one song For the college that we love-- For our dear old Bannister--good-by"
To the Bannister students there was something tremendously queer in the friendship of Theophilus and Thor. That the huge Freshman, of all the collegians, should have chosen the timorous little boner was most puzzling. Yet, to T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., a keen reader of human nature, it was clear; Thorwald thought of nothing but study, Theophilus was a grind, though he possessed intense college spirit, hence Thor was naturally drawn to the little Senior by the mutual bond of their interest in books, and Theophilus, with his hero-worshiping soul, intensely admired the splendid purpose of John Thorwald, toiling to gain knowledge, because of the promise of his dying mother. The grind, who thought that next to T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., Thor was the "greatest ever," as Hicks phrased it, had been, doing what that care-free collegian termed "missionary work," with the stolid, unimaginative Prodigious Prodigy for some weeks. Thrilled with the thought that he worked for his Alma Mater, he quietly strove to make Thorwald glimpse the true meaning and purpose of college life and its broadness of development. The loyal Theophilus lost no opportunity of impressing his behemoth friend with the sacred traditions of the campus, or of explaining why Thor was wrong in characterizing all else than study as foolishness and waste of time.