n?" cried Oscar, angrily. "Who was it that wanted to
put on the banner, 'Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity'?"

"Well, I say that still," answered Feklitus, stoutly. "But I'll have
fraternity with those I choose, and not with every one that comes along,
as you do."

"Ho, ho! that's it, is it?" cried Oscar, still more furious. "What do
you understand, then, by equality?"

"Just what you do," retorted Feklitus. "I mean that we all have equal
rights to do our own way; I don't care what other people do as long as
they let me alone to act as I choose."

"Oh, you're a fine Swiss!" cried Oscar, screaming with excitement. "Much
you must know about the history of your country! Do you know what you
would be doing now if it had not been for the brave fellows from the
small cantons? You'd be crouching before the tyrant's hat and licking
the dust from his shoes!"

At this point the Fink boys joined with great liveliness in the dispute,
and supported Oscar's side so energetically that Feklitus became excited
in his turn, and shouted that he knew the history of Switzerland as well
as they did, and that he had always been at the head of his class in
school. The quarrel grew louder and louder, and above all Oscar's voice
rose the loudest, crying angrily:--

"We will show you by and by, when we are old enough, what fraternity and
equality and love of our country means. We will found a society for the
whole of Switzerland, and every year we will celebrate the Feast of the
Foundation, in which all the inhabitants of all the cantons shall take
part; and at the feasts they shall sit in the order in which they
joined the society. The first members shall sit at the head, and then
you will see who they are!"

"Yes; then you'll see!" screamed the Finks, and Feklitus raised his
voice still more furiously:--

"Well, you won't come anywhere near the first, you St. Gall fellows, not
by a long piece!"

Just here the door was thrown wide-open by a very elegant waiter, who
looked anxiously at the windows, as if he was afraid they had been
broken in the fray. Then he placed himself in the door-way with a very
polite air, as if to intimate that he would there await the close of the
entertainment.

Oscar found it quite time to lower his voice, and to invite his friends
to go with him to the place chosen for the Festival. The polite
spectator waiting at the door seemed to exercise a subduing influence
upon all the young patriots; for they becam