Johnny laughed a little at that.
“Oh, no, papa!” he said. “I like one or two of them well enough, but I think I can stand it without them for a while. I wish I could tell you all about what’s the matter, but I haven’t any right to. I will ask you a question, though. Can you think of any kind of game, or spree, or anything that would make the fellows at school take such an early start on the Fourth that they wouldn’t have time for anything else first?”
Mr. Leslie had not in the least forgotten how he had felt and acted when he was a boy, and he also remembered various things which Johnny had said from time to time about the way in which Mr. Foster was regarded by the boys, so he had no great difficulty in guessing that some mischief was on foot which Johnny was anxious to forestall, but could not hinder by attacking the enemy on high moral grounds.
“I should not be much of an editor if I had not enough invention and to spare for such an emergency as that,” said Mr. Leslie, smiling; “How many fellows are there, altogether?”
Johnny thought a minute, and then said,—
“Only thirty, papa, since the mumps broke loose—we had over forty before that.”
“I’ll call around to-morrow, just before the exercises are over,” said Mr. Leslie, “and ask permission to address the meeting. By a curious coincidence, a plan for jollifying the Fourth was seething in my brain before you spoke, and I think a trifling alteration will make it fit the case to a nicety.”
Johnny fell upon his father’s neck with smothering affection, and went to bed with a light and easy heart; if “papa” undertook the business, all would go right.
“And he didn’t ask me a single question, except about how many of us there were!” said Johnny to himself, proudly, “What a first-class boy he must have been himself!”