"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."
"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 babel Moossy could be heard crying encouragement, and demanding whether the "mices" had been caught, but nothing would induce him to come down from his fastness. When things were at their highest, and gay spirits like Speug were beginning to conclude that even a big snow fight was nothing to a mouse hunt, and Howieson had been so lifted that he had mounted a desk, not to catch a mouse, but to give a cheer, and was standing there without collar or tie, dishevelled, triumphant, and raised above all the trials of life, the door opened and Bulldog entered. And it was a beautiful tribute to the personality of that excellent man, that the whole room crystallised in an instant, and everyone remained motionless, frozen, as it were, in the act.
Bulldog looked round with that calm composure which sat so well upon him, taking in Moossy perched upon his desk, Howieson on his form, Speug sitting with easy dignity on the top of Thomas John, and half a dozen worthies still tied together in a scrimmage, as if this were a sight to which he was accustomed every day in Muirtown Seminary.
"Foreign languages," he began, after a pause of ten seconds, "is evidently a verra divertin' subject of study, and I wonder that any pupil is left in the department of mathematics. I was not aware, Jock, that ye needed to stand on a form before you could do your German, and I suppose that is the French class in the corner. I'm sorry to intrude, but I'm pleased to see a class in earnest about its work, I really am."
"Mices!" remarked Bulldog in icy tones, as poor Moossy came down from his desk and began to explain. "My impression is that you are right, as far as I can judge—and I have some acquaintance with the circumstances. There are a considerable number of mices in this room, a good many more mices than were brought in somebody's pocket this morning. The mices I see were in my class-room this morning, and they were very quiet and peaceable mices, and they'll be the same in this class-room after this, or I'll know the reason why. If you'll excuse me," and Bulldog embraced the whole scene in a comprehensive farewell, "I'll leave the foreign class-room and go down and see what my laddies are doing with their writing"; and when Bulldog closed the door Howieson realised that he owed his escape to Bulldog's respect for another man's class-room, but that the joyful day in modern languages had come to an end. There would be no more "mices."