"Hicks, you unjailed public nuisance!" said Butch Brewster, affectionately. "We, whom you behold, are going for to enter into that room across the corridor from your boudoir, and hold a football signal quiz and confab. We should request that you permit a thunderous silence to originate in your cozy retreat, for the period of at least a hour! A word to the _wise_ is sufficient, so I have spoken several, that even you may comprehend my meaning."
"I gather you, fluently!" grinned T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., taking up "Treasure Island" and his graceful pose once more. "Leave me to peruse the thrilling pages of this classic blood-and-thunder book, and I'll cause a beautiful serenity to obtain hither."
"See that you do, you pestiferous insect!" threatened Beef McNaughton, ominously. "Come on, fellows, Hicks can't escape our vengeance, if he bursts into what he fatuously believes is song. Just let him act hippicanarious, and--"
When the Gold and Green eleven, half of which, to judge by size, was Thor, had gone with Coach Corridan into the room across from that of the blithesome Hicks, the sunny-souled Senior tried to resume his perusal of "Treasure Island," but somehow the spell had been broken by the invasion of his cozy quarters. So, after vainly essaying to take up the thread of the story again, Hicks arose and stood by the window, gazing across the campus to Bannister Field, deserted, since the football team rested for the game of the morrow. As he stood there, the gladsome Hicks reflected seriously. He thought of "Thor," and decided sorrowfully that the problem of awakening that stolid Colossus to a full understanding of campus life was as unsolved as ever.
"But I _won't_ give it up!" declared Hicks, determinedly. "I have always been good at math, and I won't let this problem baffle me."
Since the night, two weeks back, when T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had made his memorable speech, explaining to his fellow-students the "Billon-Dollar Mystery," and arousing in them a vast admiration for the slow-minded, plodding John Thorwald, every collegian had done his best to befriend the big Freshman. Upperclassmen helped him with his studies. Despite his almost rude refusal to meet any advances, the collegians always had a cheery greeting for him, and his class-mates, in fear and trembling, invaded his den at times, to show him they were his friends. Yet, despite these whole-hearted efforts, only two of old Bannister did the silent Thor seem to desire as comrades: the festive Hicks, for reasons known, and--remarkable to chronicle--little Theophilus Opperdyke, the timorous, studious "Human Encyclopedia."