Windows rattled up, heads were thrust out, a fusillade of questions
bombarded the squad in the Quadrangle below; from the three upper-class
dormitories erupted hordes of howling, shouting youths, and soon the Quad.
was filled with a singing, yelling, madly happy crowd. The Bannister Band,
that famous campus musical organization, following a time-honored habit of
playing on every possible occasion, gladsomely tuned up and soon the
noise was deafening, while study-hour, as prescribed by the Faculty, was
forgotten.

"Everybody on the campus, at once!" Butch Brewster, Master-of-Ceremonies,
boomed through his megaphone, having aroused excitement to the highest
pitch by reading Hicks' telegram. "Old Dan Flannagan's jitney-bus will soon
heave into sight. Let the Band blare, make a big noise. Let's show Hicks
how glad we are to have him back to old Bannister."

It is historically certain that Mr. Napoleon Bonaparte returning from Jena
and Austerlitz, Mr. Julius Caesar, home at Rome from his Conquests, or Mr.
Alexander the Great (Conqueror, not National League pitcher) never received
such a welcome as did T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., from his Bannister comrades
that night. To the excited students, massed on the campus before the Gym.
awaiting his arrival, every second seemed a century; everybody talked at
once until the hubbub rivaled that of a Woman's Suffrage Convention. Thomas
Haviland Hicks, Jr., was actually returning to old Bannister; and he was
bringing "The Prodigious Prodigy," whatever that was, with him. Knowing the
cheery Senior's intense love of doing the dramatic and his great ambition
to startle his Alma Mater with some sensational stunt, they could hardly
wait for old Dan Flannagan's jitney-bus to roll up the driveway,

"Here he comes!" shrieked, little Skeet Wigglesworth, an excitable Senior,
who had climbed a tree to keep watch. "Here comes our Hicks!"