"A fine set of people you have collected! and all from the small cantons, too!" he exclaimed.
"What do you mean?" 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!"