estined to go so smoothly; there were tares among the wheat, sowed
by the College Chap, who had a deep-seated aversion to any thing
serious or sensible. With some partisans whom he had enlisted, he sat
at a table and began to sing. The teacher was at a loss.

"Why, Constantine," said Mat, "a'n't you ashamed of yourself, and you a
town-clerk?"

"I've paid for my wine, and have as good a right here as the next man,"
replied the College Chap; "and the tavern isn't a place to read books
in."

There was a general murmur.

"Hold on," said Mat, "we'll soon fix this. Landlord, I'll go and get
some wood, and we'll make a fire in the room upstairs. Whoever wants to
listen may come up, and whoever don't may stay where he is."

"I'll go," said Thaddie, who had come this evening also. The stove was
soon in a glow, for Thaddie was afraid of losing something by making up
the fire afterward. Mat sat down beside the teacher and snuffed the
candle. The story was Zschokke's "Village of Gold-Makers."

In spite of its fine subject and elevating tendency, the book was far
from earning the applause which the teacher had expected: it was so
interwoven with the experiences of peasant-life that every one felt
himself qualified to judge it. It would occupy too much of our space to
repeat all the opinions expressed. Whenever the phrase recurred,
"Oswald opened his lips and spoke," Buchmaier smiled in derision of its
formality. Many of the ideas were lost; while others received a general
nod of approbation.

To the teacher's surprise, the first thing manifest when the story had
reached its close was that most of the company sided with the village
and against Oswald. Mat soon hit upon the reason of this incongruity in
saying, "What I don't like is that Oswald seems to do all the good in
the village alone."

"And I," said Thaddie, "would like to pull off his feather and his
star: he's a fine fellow, and don't want them gimcracks."

"You're right," replied Buchmaier. "He plays the gentleman too much,
anyhow; and as for his hereditary prince, what's he good for? But what
were you going to say, Andrew? Bring out the wild-cats."

"I think Oswald has no business to put his nose into other people's
pots and pans. What's he got to do with their cooking?"

"And I think," said Kilian, "the farmers are made out a good deal too
stupid: it isn't quite so bad, after all."

"And you're a learned man yourself, too," said Hansgeorge. Everybody
laughed