s room reached an historical
height. It had been discovered that any dislike which Moossy may have
had to a puppy in his desk, and a frog in his top-cloak pocket, was
nothing to the horror with which he regarded mice. As soon as it was
known that Moossy would as soon have had a tiger in the French
class-room as a mouse upon the loose, it was felt that the study of
foreign languages should take a new departure. One morning the boys came
in with such punctuality, and settled to their work with such demure
diligence, that even Moossy was suspicious and watched them anxiously.
For ten minutes there was nothing heard but the drone of the class
mangling German sentences, and then Howieson cried aloud in
consternation, "A mouse!"

"Vat ees that you say? Ah! mices! vere?" and Moossy was much shaken.

"Yonder," said Speug, pointing to where a mouse was just disappearing
under the desk; "and there's another at the fireplace. Dod, the place is
fair swarming, and, Moossy, there's one trying to run up your leg. Take
care, man, for ony sake."

"A mices," cried Moossy, "vill up my legs go; I vill the desk ascend,"
and with the aid of a chair Moossy scrambled on to his desk, where he
entrenched himself against attack, believing that at that height he
would be safe from "mices."

[Illustration: "THE SCHOOL FELL OVER BENCHES AND OVER ONE ANOTHER."]

Speug suggested that as this plague of mice had burst upon the French
class-room the scholars should meet the calamity like men, and asked
Moossy's permission to go out upon the chase. For once Moossy and his
pupils had one mind, and the school gave itself to its heart's content,
and without a thought of consequences, to a mouse hunt. Nothing is more
difficult than to catch a mouse, and the difficulty is doubled when no
one wishes to catch it; and so the school fell over benches, and over
one another, and jumped over the desks and scrambled under them, ever
pretending to have caught a mouse, and really succeeding once in
smothering an unfortunate animal beneath the weight of half a dozen
boys. Thomas John was early smeared with ink from top to bottom by an
accident in which Howieson took a leading part, and the German
Dictionary intended for a mouse happened to take Cosh on the way, which
led to an encounter between that indignant youth and Bauldie, in which
mice were forgotten. The blackboard was brought down with a crash, and a
form was securely planted on its ruins. High above the bab