Jack Ranger's Western Trip Part 19

"Ach! I vill tell you!" spoke the German teacher.

"I will leave at once razzer zan stay where he iss!" came from the Frenchman.

"Come to my office," said Dr, Mead. "I am afraid it's another of the boys' pranks."

The two Instructors, muttering against each other, followed the head of the academy down the corridor.

"Now's our chance to sneak!" exclaimed Jack. "Say, it was the best ever!"

"What was in the notes that made them so mad?" asked Sam.

"Why, the one Garlach got stated that the Germans were a race of thieves and robbers and would never be anything better. Professor Garlach, on the other hand, seemed to have written to his French friend that the latter nation was nothing but a lot of long-legged frog-eaters, who were more ladies than they were men!"

"No wonder they went up into the air!" exclaimed Bony Balmore. "It was like a match to gunpowder."

"Lucky we could turn the lights out," commented Nat Anderson, "or they'd be fighting yet."

"Maybe they will have a duel," suggested John Smith.

But in some way Dr. Mead managed to patch matters up. Nor was any punishment visited on the boys. The doctor evidently made allowances for the closing of school, and the consequent slacking of discipline that was bound to occur. The next day, though the French and German professors glared more darkly than usual at each other, there was no reference to the notes.

The closing exercises were soon over and then, after a few formal words of farewell for the term from Dr. Mead, Was.h.i.+ngton Hall was declared closed until the fall.

"Whoop!" yelled Jack, as he came with a rush from chapel where the final program had been rendered. "Hold me down, someone!"

"I will!" exclaimed Nat, jumping on his chum's back, and bearing him to the earth.

"I'll help!" cried several, and soon half a dozen had piled upon Jack, in the middle of the campus.

"Down!" he cried, half smothered. "That's enough!"

"Fall in line for a grand march!" shouted Fred Kaler, as he tooted on a tin fife. "L-l-M-let m-m-m-me--l-l-l--Pzzant!" spluttered Will.

"Let me lead!"

"Too late!" cried Sam, as he ran out and got at the head of the impromptu procession.

"Came on and get Socrat and Garlach in line!" called Jack. "We'll make 'em march side by side and forget all their troubles."

The idea was received with shouts of laughter.

Off the lads started on a run for the rooms of the two professors.

"Come on!" cried Jack to Mr. Garlach.

"Ach! Vat iss it now?" inquired the instructor, vainly struggling against the hold Jack had of him. "You boys vill drive me to distraction!"

"Got to take part in the grand march!" went on Jack.

Before Mr. Garlach knew what was happening, he found himself being hustled out of his chambers and fairly carried along in a rush of the students.

Sam Chalmers had in the meanwhile gone to Professor Socrat's study.

"Come on!" he cried. "Take part in the grand salute to the French flag."

"La belle France!" cried the teacher. "Vive l' Republic!"

"That's the cheese!" fairly shouted Sam. "Hurry up!"

And, before Professor Socrat could catch his breath he found himself being hurried along the corridor and out on the campus.

"Hurrah for France!" cried a score of voices.

"My compliments!" exclaimed Mr. Socrat, bowing low to the a.s.semblage of students.

"Long may the German flag wave!" came another cry.

"Ach! Dot is goot to mine heart!" said Mr. Garlach.

"Zat is an insult to me!" spluttered the Frenchman, as Sam hurried him on.

"Don't mind 'em. They don't know what they're saying," was Sam's comment.

"Vy do they shout for dot frog-eating nation?" inquired Mr. Garlach of Jack.

"Mistake I guess," was the reply. "The boys are not very good on language yet."

Then, before either of the instructors could protest, they found themselves side by side, being carried along in a press of students who marched around the academy, singing at the top of their voices, and each one rendering a different air.

"Whoop! Isn't this great!" shouted Jack in Nat's ear.

"The best ever!" was the answer. "It only happens once in a lifetime!"

But all things must have an end, and at last the grand march came to a close. The students fairly outdid themselves, and had to halt every now and then to rest from the combined exertion of laughing and leaping as they paraded.

"Three cheers for Was.h.i.+ngton Hall!" called Jack.

The volume of sound was deafening.

"Now three for Professor Garlach!"

How the boys did yell. The professor looked as pleased as a lad with his first pair of trousers, and bowed low to Mr. Socrat whom he had detected in the act of cheering for him,

"Three cheers for Professor Socrat!" yelled Jack.

Mr. Garlach joined in the cries for his late enemy, and then the two teachers shook hands, while the boys cheered again.

"Now good loud ones for Dr. Mead and all the rest of the teachers!"

called Jack, and by this time the cheering habit was so implanted that the lads cheered everything they could think of from vacation to Socker the janitor.