T. Haviland Hicks, sophomore

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. — Hicks — A s of Old i

II . — ‘ ‘ V OTES — FOR — F RESHMEN ” 12

CHAPTER I HICKS AS OF old!

'AVhere, oh, where has my little dog gone — Where, oh, where is he?

With his ears cut short, and his tail cut long — Oh, where — and oh, where can he be?’'

APTAIN JACK MERRITT, of the Bannister

College eleven, sat on the Quadrangle entrance steps of Nordyke Hall, the Junior dormitory, grinning up at big ‘‘Butch’’ Brewster, the behemoth Gold and Green fullback, and his Herculean teammate, “Beef” McNaughton, who stood before him, enshrouded in deepest melancholy.

“I tell you — it’s serious, Jack!” Butch had been protesting, when a foghorn voice roared out the heart-rending ballad that awoke the campus echoes, “Here 1919 is in honor bound not to haze — thanks to your old Anti-hazing Crusade of last year — the Freshmen are swaggering and truculent, more riotous every day, and — just listen to thatT

I

The somber Beef, despite his gloom, smiled at the hilarious Jack Merritt, and the three collegians gazed across the brightly lighted Quadrangle at a window on the third floor of Smithson, the abode of the Sophomores. They beheld a slender, lath-like youth who carelessly strummed a banjo after the fashion of an ancient troubadour as he inquired plaintively in a raucous voice the probable route taken by his departed canine.

Windows of the upper-class dormitories and of Smithson went up noisily, and heads were thrust out; there sounded vociferous howls, jeers, catcalls, and shouts — angry students offered humorous advice :

‘'Go visit the dog-catcher — maybe he has the brute V'

“Hire a hall, and hold your old saengerfest T’

“Hicks is off — we're in for another year of torture."

“If that pup left its muzzle, Hicks — use it on yourself!''

In response to the strenuous complaints registered by the wholly unappreciative audience, the embryo Caruso bowed gracefully several times, evidently accepting as well-deserved applause the storm of protest.

“The One-and-only Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr.!" muttered Butch Brewster, as the shadow-like

HICKS— AS OF OLD!

Sophomore disappeared from the window. ‘^The blithesome, irrepressible, sunny — Hicks!’’

‘‘It’s Hicks — as of old !” smiled Jack Merritt, now a care-free Junior, recalling a night, just a year before, when he had sat on the sacred Senior fence — on the outer campus — and witnessed the operatic debut of the festive Hicks. “I’ll never forget, Butch, when I first heard him at the window of his room in Creighton! Heavy Hughes, Babe McCabe, and I rushed up to settle him — well, we tried all year and failed!”

Bannister College had opened for what was to be Hicks’ first term as a lordly Sophomore, and the heedless collegian was back, as he characteristically described it, “in full force!” Returned likewise were all his old friends of the Freshman days — “Butch,” “Beef,” “Pudge” Langdon, the lengthy “Ichabod,” “Skeet” Wigglesworth, and others who had loyally folloAved his reckless leadership.

“And the last thing Hicks vowed at Commencement,” commented Butch wrathfully, “was that he intended to be serious this year ! Listen to him now — just as rattle-brained and pester some as ever! You must confess. Jack, that something has got to be done to those Freshmen — just listen to that riot !’^

Bedlam seemed to have broken out over in Creighton Hall, the Freshman dormitory; an enthusiastic number of first-year students made whole-hearted efforts to prevent any collegian from studying, and supreme success crowned their sincere endeavors. In one room a furious pugilistic contest was in progress, encouraged by a crowd of cheering spectators; in another, an augmented chorus of lusty-lunged youths chanted, ‘‘We are Freshmen, Foolish Freshmen r' to the tune of the famous Yale “Boola!"’ song.

On every floor raged the' same disorder, in open defiance of all Bannister law and tradition.

“Such a disgraceful condition has never before prevailed in Bannister history,’’ declared Beef bitterly. “We are helpless — literally tied by our word of honor not to haze ! And what does Hicks, our brilliant class president, care how the Freshmen act? He ”

As if in answer to the wrathful Beef’s question, the same slender, debonair youth who had made the unharmonious inquiries about the tragic loss of his dog reappeared at the window ; he plunked the banjo with a fiendish disregard of time, and in a sepulchral voice bellowed :

^'Oh, the bulldog on the bank, and the bullfrog in — the — poo-oo-ool !

The bulldog on the bank, and the ’’

This time, however, something happened that no upper-classman at old Bannister would have

HICKS— AS OF OLD!

dreamed was possible. Several audacious Freshmen who had been leaning from a window on the third floor of Creighton, directly across from Hicks’ room, produced monster megaphones, and boomed :

“Oool Listen to the mocking-bird I”

“Give that calf more rope !”

“Kill it quick — don’t let the poor thing suffer!’’

Then they imitated — with great effect — the mournful howling of a lonesome hound at midnight, to express their opinion of Hicks’ vocal efforts. The meek and lowly Freshmen, popularly supposed to maintain at all times a most respectful attitude toward upper-classmen, and also a decorous silence in their dormitory, had actually derided the president of the Sophomore Class !

“This is too much. Beef !’’ roared the enraged and tortured Butch Brewster, propelling his bulk furiously toward Smithson, followed by the lumbering right tackle. “Nero fiddled while Rome burned; Hicks makes night hideous while Bannister is defied by the Freshmen — ^here’s where we crush that pestiferous insect!”

Up the two flights of stairs charged the panting, perspiring football stars, never pausing until they reached the door of the room from which issued the weird sounds confidently supposed by the warbling Hicks to represent singing. Here the berserk duo, unable to make themselves heard above the tumult.

belabored the panels lustily, adding forcible kicks for good measure.

At last the portal, unable to withstand the vigorous assault, yielded, and Butch Brewster, assisted by Beef McNaughton’s plunge, catapulted into the debonair presence of Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr.

‘‘Hail, Hercules and Hector!’’ greeted the bean-pole youth pleasantly, discreetly stowing the offending banjo away in the closet. ‘‘Just dropping in for a social call ? I thought I heard a noise in the corridor, but supposed, naturally, that it was applause. Why didn’t you say you desired to enter my boudoir?”

HICKS— AS OF OLD!

Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr., whose paternal ancestor owned several Pittsburgh steel mills, and who came to his alma mater’s Commencements in a private car, was the most popular collegian at old Bannister, and not on account of his “Dad’s” predatorywealth.

No one who met the blithesome, sunny-tempered Hicks, with his loyal, generous soul, his care-free, happy-go-lucky disposition and his scatter-brained escapades could resist him. In his Freshman year his room had become a rendezvous for students from every class — athletes or mere “grinds,” he was a true friend to them all.

Possessed of the Herculean proportions of a fullfledged Jersey mosquito, he had kept the college in a hilarious uproar in his Freshman existence by his ridiculous athletic endeavors. Now, however, he had grown indolent, and already in his Sophomore term he seemed resigned contentedly to a career, consisting mostly of banjo-twanging, roaring songs, playing host to his many friends, and eating ^ downtown at “Jerry’s.”

“You utterly useless, campus-cluttering fragment of inhumanity!” Big Butch seemed about to explode. “You fusser, you pillow-punishing, banjoplunking tailor’s dummy! You animated bean-pole — what earthly good are you, anyway, to ’19? Your chief worry is to get clothes to fit that toothpick anatomy! You imagine that life is a continual round of eating and singing! You were going to take your college course so seriously — ^bah !’’

‘‘Them’s cruel words, Butch !” chirped Hicks grammatically, posing before the mirror, and adjusting with loving care a tie of luridly futuristic design. “Have a care, or I shall arise in my wrath and crush you! My phenomenal detective powers inform me that you and Beef are intensely wrathful; therefore, I deduce that something is wrong !”

That youthful Goliath, Beef McNaughton, pounced on the grinning Hicks, tucked him under one arm, and strode over to the window. Setting his helpless classmate on his feet again, he pointed across the Quadrangle to the hotbed of Freshman anarchy — Creighton Hall.

^‘That is what is wrong!” he stormed. “Was it like that in Creighton last year, Hicks, when we were Freshmen? Has any first-year class ever been so defiant and insolent as this one? As president of the Sophomore Class, you must act. What are are you going to do ?”

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., dodging away to a safe distance from his two bulky fellow-Sophomores, decorated his cherubic countenance with an expression of such absolute consternation that they were highly gratified, believing he was aroused at last.

HICKS— AS OF OLD!

But Butch, a second later, discovered that the irrepressible youth was peering into the mirror, apparently aghast at the disarray of that incorrigible tie ! must change it,’' murmured Hicks reflectively, can never study my Math with my necktie six inches out of whack! Oh, I beg pardon. Beef — were you remarking about the trifling disturbance over in the Freshman dormitory?”

It shall be to the undying glory of Butch Brewster and Beef McNaughton that they stayed their hands at that moment ; with marvelous self-control, the big fullback crushed down a mighty impulse to fall on the grinning collegian and smite him, hip and thigh. Instead, he said quite calmly:

’19 faces a crisis, old man! You know that if those Freshmen continue to defy and ridicule us, the upper-classmen will jeer, and our class will be the laughing-stock of the campus! If you have any class spirit at all, Hicks — be serious 1 ”

For a moment the sunny smile left the beaming face of the toothpick Sophomore, as he gazed across at Creighton, where the Freshman turmoil seemed to have been redoubled. Then, with his old, confident self-assurance, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., airily discarded harrowing care as he blithely chirped :

‘‘Oh, just leave it to me. Butch ! We are pledged on our honor as individuals and as a class not to haze the Freshmen, and I fear they have learned our secret ! But strategy and diplomacy will always conquer sheer physical power. As soon as I have an inspiration, I will proceed to quell those boisterous spirits!'’

Butch Brewster, who never failed to become highly indignant at the mild braggadocio of his shadow-like classmate, stared at the cheerful Hicks in deep disgust.

‘‘Come on. Beef," he said, after a pause. “Hicks is hopeless! To think that we elected that brainless string-bean for our class president! And for the rest of our college course! The Freshmen will stride over T9 with hobnailed boots, for all that insignificant atom cares!"

When the two football giants, rumbling volcanically in their anger, had lumbered across the corridor into Butch Brewster's room, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., stood at the window — this time, however, he did not twang the beloved banjo and play the troubadour.

“It is a crisis !" he murmured, as he watched the riotous Freshmen across the Quadrangle, “but — what can we do? Bannister traditions are being assailed, my alma mater is in peril of notoriety and shame, but we are powerless, since we are pledged not to haze !"

For a long time the Sophomore leader, who was generally supposed to be utterly incapable of seri-

HICKS— AS OF OLD!

ous meditation, gazed out into the Quadrangle; he saw the lights gleaming from the dormitories’ windows, the white spire of the college chapel, above which rode a glorious full moon, and he heard the mellow chimes of the ’02 clock in the library tower.

'^Something must be done!” he breathed, as the riot in Creighton increased, until upper-classmen demanded why ’19 did not quell the insubordination.

have got to act, but — what can I do ? I love dear old Bannister and — Oh, well. I’ll wait for an inspiration, and then ”

Chapter II

B ig Butch Brewster one night a week later was deep in the mysteries of a logarithm, when a vast sound wave poured across the corridor from Hicks’ room, fairly inundating the huge Sophomore :

“Sweet Ad-el-ine — (air) — “My — YAD-del-line !*’ (sepulchral bass) —

‘‘My— YADeline— ’’ (air)— “MY— YAD-del-line (criminal tenor) —

“At night, dear heart — (air) — “At night — dear heart!’’ (second bass)—

“For you I pine — ” (air) — “For you — I — pine!” (awful tenor).

The aroused Butch, stalking noiselessly across the corridor from his room to the boudoir of the festive Hicks, a pillow in each hand, came perilously near a hilarious explosion as he softly pushed the door

‘‘VOTES FOR FRESHMEN!”

ajar and gazed at the slim youth — the instigator of the saengerfest.

Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr., serenely unaware of his impending doom — his feet propped on the radiator, and his chair, balanced precariously on two legs, tilted back at a rakish angle — was rendering, presumably from the book in his hand, a most sentimental ballad.

As the blithesome troubadour was carrying the air, inserting an abyssmal bass at intervals, alternating with an atrocious tenor, and frequently achieving a disgraceful and blood-curdling falsetto, the results of the three-in-one warbling were positively appalling!

“Take that — you desperado!’' howled the wrathy Butch, kicking wide open the portal and opening fire with deadly aim. “And this — you destroyer of human happiness ! Aha ! The villain of the drama is overthrown. I have encompassed his downfall, and Right has triumphed!”

The first fusillade caught the unsuspecting Caruso in the face, effectually choking off his song; as he clawed desperately at the atmosphere to regain his equilibrium, the second broadside a la Butch landed heavily on his neck. He fought for balance one agonizing second — grasping double handfuls of the air — then he crashed backward to the floor.

Overthrown, but unconquered, the irrepressible

Hicks held up his book, waved his feet gracefully in air, and from his prostrate position continuing to essay, with indifferent success, the three parts, he chanted on :

‘ffn all my dree-yums — ” (air) — “In all my dreams (bass) —

“Your fair face beams — ’’ (air) — “Your fair face — bee-yums !” (tenor) —

“You are the i-dol of — my heart, swee-eet Ad-del-line — (air)—

“Swee-eet Ad-del-line (voice from the tombs).

''Shut upr roared Butch, showing his intense appreciation of Hicks’ operatic endeavor.' ‘‘That isn’t a song book, you brainless lunatic — it’s ‘The Odes of Horace’ ! How can you make a bluff at studying when you hold the book upside down, you minus quantity!”

“I prithee, dear, kind Butch,” began Hicks, airily, “heed; I turned it upside down, hoping the Latin verse would flow to my head! If Mr. Horace was glad because he ‘owed so much,’ why didn’t he write his old Odes in English? To me. Butch, his Odes are perfectly odious — ha! ha! A joke! Make note of that for the Bannister Weekly! Honest, old man, I was studying, but I felt a singing

spell come on me, and ”

Butch, mounting to the rostrum — the tiger-skin rug in mid-floor — glared at the grinning Hicks, who

^‘VOTES FOR FRESHMEN!”

was industriously jotting down the paralyzing joke for future reference.

‘"Hicks,” began the football star earnestly, “can’t you realize just how useless your career at Bannister really is, and how wrong it is for you to waste heedlessly the splendid opportunities that

golden college years offer to ”

“This way, ladies and gentlemen!” bawled the incorrigible Hicks, after the fashion of a side show “Ballyhoo” man. “Reserved seats for the lecture — • don’t crowd, plenty of time ! The Celebrated Chautauqua Chatterer, Mr. Butch Brewster, will speak on

— an average of twice a second! Mr. Brewster spoke before the Crowned Heads of Europe — could choke him off ! He — Ouch, Butch, you hurt

The behemoth Butch, tackling the splinter Sophomore, hurled him on the davenport ; then, pinning him down by planting a ponderous knee on his care-free classmate’s chest, he proceeded with his lecture — fatuously intended to show the heedless Hicks the error of his ways.

‘'You were going to be serious this year!” stormed Butch, emphasizing his remarks by prodding the helpless Hicks. “Last Commencement you vowed to take college life earnestly! You resolved to build yourself up by regular Gym exercise, so as to make a Bannister first team before you graduate! You determined to plug away and make your Dad happy by winning your athletic B — which you promised to win in three sports!

^'Bah! You went to Gym once, yanked the chestweights out of whack, nearly beheaded a dozen athletes by your wild Indian-club swinging, and you quit! Too lazy to persevere, though you know your Dad’s ambition is ”

“I was too muscle-sore. Butch!” protested the prostrate Hicks ; “besides, I have a wonderful scheme for winning my football B. Just wait until I have practiced it for a year or so !”

“We elected you class president,” thundered i6

“VOTES FOR FRESHMEN!”

Butch, “and that great responsibility, far from awakening you to serious thoughts, made you worse than ever! You are the same futile, heedless, butterfly scapegrace you were last year. No ambition but to look like a tailor’s model, roar silly songs, and give blow-outs down at Jerry’s!”

In fact, during the two weeks of his Sophomore year that had passed, despite the repeated and scathing denunciations of Butch Brewster, Hicks seemingly had accomplished nothing. Though unanimously elected class leader, the honor rested lightly on his devoted head, and he failed to respond by striving to put the Freshmen in their place, to the wrath of his loyal friend.

Hicks’ room in Smithson Hall, as in Creighton in his Freshman year, was across the corridor from Butch Brewster’s. The cozy den of the sunny Sophomore was always open house to all — his friends, classmates, and the upper-classmen made his cheery quarters a rendezvous. Athletes and “boners,” the famous or the obscure, were welcome alike, and Hicks was happiest when playing host to a jolly crowd.

“And those Freshmen,” growled Butch, freeing his prisoner, “growing more swaggering and impudent each day — and here you loaf, singing sentimental songs, and ”

“Wait — Butch!” Hicks was as near being resentful as his genial nature permitted. ‘‘Hold on! You know, old man, that Jack Merritt’s anti-hazing crusade, which he started last year to explain why his class stopped hazing, when I forced him to quit, has proven a boomerang! Our hands are tied by our pledges. ' What can I do with the Freshmen, handicapped as I am by ’’

“Forgive me, Hicks!” begged Butch remorsefully. “You are right. We cannot blame you for the attitude of the Freshmen — Prexy is to blame! Your triumph over Jack last year has proven a boomerang, for a fact, and now it comes back and floors us Sophomores!”

At that instant a thunderous chorus broke out on the third floor of Creighton Hall, the Freshmen dormitory — directly across the Quadrangle from Hicks’ windows. Evidently at a prearranged signal, the first-year students appeared at their windows, armed with megaphones, and they fairly boomed the song :

‘‘There's a hole in the bottom of the sea !

And we’ll put old ’19 in that hole —

In that hole — in that hole —

Oh, we’ll put old ’19 in that hole !”

Then pandemonium broke loose in Creighton — a perfect bedlam reigned supreme. A noise that shamed the combined clamor of an earthquake, a cyclone, a European artillery battle, and a thunder-

‘‘VOTES FOR FRESHMEN!”

storm blared forth. The meek and lowly Freshmen popularly supposed by all campus traditions to be intensely quiet, were effectually shattering campus law and stillness.

‘‘Butch — look!” shrieked the astounded Hicks, who had crossed to the window at the outburst. “Just look across there — look!'’

Thus commanded. Butch Brewster rushed to the window and gazed, and the bewildering spectacle that he beheld literally paralyzed him. Petrified, the two Sophomores stood, staring dumbly across the Quadrangle at Creighton Hall, the abode of their natural enemies — the Freshmen.

The usually dignified dormitory resembled the front of a moving-picture theater ; several flamboyant signs and posters, painted in monster letters and riotous colors, hung from the windows. In the bright light of the Quadrangle — formed by the four dormitory buildings — every lurid-hued word could plainly be seen by all upper-classmates.

A hallway ran through each dormitory, from the Quadrangle court to the outer campus, with an entrance at each end. Over the Quadrangle doorway to Creighton Hall was stretched a long white banner, announcing, in big, blazing red letters :

THIS IS INDEPENDENCE HALL— THE HOME OF FREE FRESHMEN ! WE ACKNOWLEDGE NO

SOPHOMORE RULE! THE CLASS OF 1920 IS ABSOLUTELY UNSHACKLED!

From a third-floor window — suspended on wires running to the next — a huge sign flared across the wall of the Freshman dormitory:

VOTES FOR FRESHMEN! Headquarters of THE FRESHMAN EQUAL SUFFRAGE LEAGUE! We Demand EQUAL RIGHTS with all upper-classmen ! We want Freshman representation on the Athletic Association Advisory Board — the right to have Team Captains elected from our Class — WE WILL HAVE Class Officers —colors— and a Yell ! WE DEMAND THE VOTE in all Student Mass ' Meetings ! And — WE ARE MILI- TANT !

Under this was a smaller poster, but in big letters and extremely hectic colors :

Our Motto Is— LIBERTY— EQUALITY- FRATERNITY !

But the crowning master stroke of the militant Freshmen was an intensely vivid banner adorning a window of Creighton exactly opposite that of Hicks, across the Quadrangle. To make sure that it could be read, lighted candles had been placed behind the thin cloth, which stretched across the lower sash. Appalled, Hicks and Butch made out :

We Know THE TERRIBLE SECRET of ’19! If T. HAVILAND HICKS, JR., wants to Find Out Who is BOSS around here— LET HIM START SOME- THING! ! The One-and-Only Class Leader at Bannister is Our Own— RODDY PERKINS !

‘TOTES FOR FRESHMEN!”

The Freshman riot had been well timed and marvelously executed, fairly stunning the college. At that hour no professors were likely to enter the Quadrangle and behold Creighton's gorgeous face. If any Faculty protest as to the turmoil were registered, it would come from the outer campus, to which their dormitory presented a decorous front.

The Freshmen, taking advantage of a peculiar situation — to be explained later — which seemed to render '19 helpless, had revolted against Bannister tradition. From time immemorial it had been an unwritten law at all colleges and universities that Freshmen must not enter fully into campus life until their first year was ended.

Yet these first-year collegians, instigated by a master-mind, had demanded equal rights, and a vote in all student proceedings at Bannister.

As the stunned Butch Brewster and T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., stared across the Quadrangle at the headquarters of the Freshman Equal Suffrage League, which greatly resembled some political ward rendezvous, windows in Nordyke and Bannister — ^Junior and Senior dormitories — flew up, heads were thrust out excitedly, and voices shouted :

‘‘Oh, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., do you see thatf

“What’s the matter, Hicks — are you asleep ?”

“Oh, you Sophs! What are you going to do about it?”

‘‘Rah for the Freshies ! Start something, Hicks, and see who is Boss!''

There was a stampede in the corridor, and in rushed Beef McNaughton, his fellow-behemoth. Pudge Langdon, the excited “Ichabod” — that skyscraped Sophomore and little Theophilus Opperdyke, the “grind’’ who worshipped Hicks. Outside the room crowded more wrought-up second-year students, Cherub Challoner, Billy Harnsworth, Don Carterson, Chub Chalmers, and even the apathetic, listless “Hooligan” Hughes.

“What are you going to do about it, Hicks?” raged Beef, while Ichabod’s protuberant Adam’s apple bobbed ludicrously as he strove to speak.

“Let’s rush the impudent Freshmen!” shouted little “Skeet” Wigglesworth, a highly excitable Sophomore. “Come on fellows. I’ll lead!”

But Hicks was himself again. Quieting the tumult with upraised hand, for they looked to him as class president, he grinned as of old, and addressed his perturbed classmates.

“No violence,” he warned; “they greatly outnumber us, and have some splendid athletes in their class. No — this is a crisis, fellows, and it must be handled with diplomacy. The One-and-only Roddy Perkins has hurled his hat into the ring. So be it — here goes my figurative chapeau after it !”

“Where are you going?” demanded Pudge, as

^‘VOTES FOR FRESHMEN!”

the awakened Hicks, electrified to action, picked him. Beef, Ichabod, and Butch to accompany him on some mission.

Roddy Perkins room,” said Hicks cheerfully. Evidently, he is the master-mind of this unparalleled villainy. I wish to cross rapiers with him, to find if he is a foeman worthy of my steel !”

Chapter III

S T. Haviland Plicks, Jr., and his aides-decamp strode across the illuminated Quadrangle, the hilarious spectators in the windows of the two upper-class dormitories whistled, shouted, oflered humorous or sarcastic advice, and hurled down on them jeers and ridicule. Several supposedly dignified Seniors chanted gleefully in chorus :

^‘Hep! Hep! Shoot him if he won’t keep step. Hep — Hep!^^

A crowd of care-free Juniors in Nordyke contributed a hastily improvised parody, which they delightedly rendered at concert pitch :

‘Tramps — tramps — tramps — the Sophs are marching!

On their way to Creighton Hall —

Mighty Hicks must watch his step, or he'll lose his brilliant rep —

Oh, the Sophomores are marching to a fall I"

The blithesome Hicks, as he led his Diplomatic Corps toward the entrance to Creighton, was wondering what sort of a youth this Roddy Perkins would prove to be. Beyond a doubt, the Freshman leader was a natural-born politician — he possessed a marvelous knowledge of human nature, he knew how to plan and execute vast enterprises, and he surely must have a commanding personality, to sway his classmates as he did.

With Machiavellian cunning, the first-year chieftain had plotted in absolute secrecy. The flamboyant, taunting banners and signs had been designed and painted without a single upper-classman being aware of it — evidently, at a signal, they had been flung from the Freshman windows and hung over the doorway, at once, by Roddy’s henchmen. And this had been done at fifteen minutes past ten o’clock, so that the dazed Sophomores could hardly begin revenge before ‘flights out,” fifteen minutes later.

As the wrathful Sophomores reached the entrance to Creighton, the lights in the dormitories and Quadrangle grew dim, and then went out, plunging everything into darkness. Usually, after the college dynamo shut down at ten-thirty, a few electric lights in the Quadrangle fed by a wire from the town plant glowed all night; now, however, Hicks found that the Freshmen had removed the bulbs, so as to insure absolute gloom in the court.

‘‘Hicks/’ breathed the alarmed Beef, clutching his leader frantically, as they halted, dazed by the enshrouding blackness, “what does it mean ? Listen — the whole Freshman class is coming downstairs!”

Simultaneously with the total darkness of the Quadrangle, the thunderous tread of marching hosts resounded in the corridors and on the stairway of Creighton. Evidently, the flaunting forth of the spectacular banners, in itself a master-stroke, had been only the heralding of something more vast.

“Quick!” ordered Hicks, himself setting the example. “Sprint through the hallway to the campus — it’s dark there, and we won’t be seen !”

Standing in the doorway that opened on the outer campus, the bewildered members of 1919 waited; the ominous tread grew louder, the stairway shook under the regular tramp of numberless feet, and then

Nearly a hundred Freshmen poured into the hallway, and marched along it toward the Quadrangle, headed by an impromptu band consisting of two blaring cornets, a banjo, two guitars, a screechy violin, and a wheezy accordion. Atrociously butchering “It Looks Like a Big Night To-Night,” the embryo Sousas joyously endeavored to destroy the rest of any slumbering upper-classmen, and — succeeded.

Most of the vast procession, marching in double file, bore lighted candles, a few had lanterns, and many carried lighted lamps, until it seemed that Gideon's band must have been resurrected. Shouting and singing, with that medley orchestra always perpetrating discordant chaos, the exuberant Freshmen paraded around the Quadrangle — a mighty host.

“^A nightshirt parade,’ stammered Ichabod.”

‘‘A nightshirt parade!" stammered Ichabod, as the transfixed Sophomores crept around the dormitory and stood by the corner of the Quadrangle, protected by darkness. ‘What is it, anyhow, fellows?"

Every Freshman had slipped on his robe-de-nuit over his other clothes. The horde of ghostly forms, distinct in the flickering light from the candles, lanterns, and lamps, carried a number of transparencies, as the banners of political marchers are called — a box-like arrangement with the four sides made of thin cloth, mounted on a pole, with a lighted candle inside to show up vividly the painted words.

VOTES FOR FRESHMEN! predominated, with

LIBERTY— FRATERNITY— EQUALITY ! a close second. One enormous sign read :

Down with Despotism ! ’Rah for Roddy Perkins and a Square Deal!

Another proclaimed luridly :

We Demand EQUAL RIGHTS for Freshmen!

Evidently, the same master-artist painted those banners who had designed the fervid ones on Creighton Hall.

‘T still fail to get the idea!’’ murmured Hicks, as the Freshmen, in a solid phalanx, drew up in the Quadrangle, facing their dormitory, and indulged in an inexplicable silence. ‘‘Oh, now I see — a Freshman mass meeting, but cleverly arranged for the benefit of the upper-classmen! Look!”