The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 62, July 1958 - April, 1959 Page: 424

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

Executive Committee of the inmates." It seems the Committee
met every "two years."""5
Steward Adrian Pool was quite a manager. He had made an
agreement with the Regents to run University Hall in the sum-
mer of 1906, "carrying all responsibility-meeting all the trains,
conducting students to their lodging places, and feeding men and
women at the Hall for $3.00 per week." His compensation was-
what was left over."6
Only a "poor boy" or one who was poor when he was in the
University can fully appreciate the tradition of the Judge Clark
Christmas Dinner."7 That dinner was the one bright spot in the
two weeks' vacation period when hungry B Hall boys were
stranded in Austin for the holiday season. The spoiled, elite stu-
dents of the mid-twentieth century know nothing of the pangs of
hunger or the loneliness in a strange town on Christmas Day-
with an empty purse.
Alf Toombs, a great natural comedian, was an inmate from
1907 to 1911. During that time Gene Harris arrived. Then
evolved the Harris-Toombs stock company, which, for a considera-
tion, put on any kind of performance desired by the public.
Many famous men took part in these unrehearsed plays."8
J. M. Harris avers that
Gene Harris was the greatest mimic and voice imitator he ever
knew. One of Gene's favorite stunts was to call up some professor and
state that he was Dr. Sidney E. Mezes (President). Gene would then
proceed to give the professor a "going over," ask him a lot of embar-
rassing questions, and if Gene knew the professor had a date that
night, order the professor to "be at my house tonight at 8:30 to talk
matters over." Consternation resulted for the professor, and much
hilarity took place in the Hall.9
Perhaps the most famous female character that ever inhabited
B Hall was the B Hall hen. She was found late one evening roost-
ing on the westside honeysuckle. After she had been fed by the
MSSplawn, The University of Texas: Its Origin and Growth to 1928 (typescript,
University of Texas Library), ioo.
5slbid., loi.
671Brown, B Hall, Texas, 124.
BIsbid., 12o.
59J. M. Harris to Walter E. Long, June to, 1958 (MS., in possession of Walter E.
Long, Austin, Texas).

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