68 THE OPPERMANNS about. In a groping, clumsy way he constantly sought to win Heinrich's approval. He had actually learned English in his honour, But even when he had greeted him, one day, with the words: IIHow are you, old fellow?" Heinrich had remained perfectly cool. It was a torment to Rittersteg that even his great success did not alter this indifference. Apart from the appointment of the two Young Eagles, noth- ing sensational occurred in the Lower Sixth. The boys quickly came to terms with their first Nationalist teacher. He was not particularly popular and not particularly unpopular. He was a master like any other, nobody got excited about hirn any longer. Soon the phenomenal performances of Heinrich La- vendel at football again became more interesting than Dr. Vogelsang's occasional Nationalist utterances. Rector Francois, too, calmed down. He sat rnildly and peace- fully in his big study between the busts of Volta ire and Fred- erick the Great, Nearly three weeks had now passed without the occurrence of any untoward incident. There was only one thing that worried him, Herr Vogelsang's frightful German, that stiff, trite, editorial, Nationalist New German. At night when he retired, he would sit on the bed, carefully unfastening his suspenders, and larnent to his wife: "He is ruining every- thing I've given the boys. Thought and speech are identical. Wehave struggled for seven years to get the boys to use straightforward, lucid German. Then the Ministry of Educa- tion lets this Teuton loose on them. You can train the skull of a new-born babe to any shape you like, make it lang or broad. Is the careful speech of our boys sufficiently drilled into them to withstand the influence of this cramped, affected, early- Germanie jargon? It would be a pity if the boys were to go out into the world lacking clear ideas as well as clear speech." His kindly eyes gazed with a worried look through the st~ong lenses of his rimless glasses. "Those are not the things to worry about now, Alfred," Frau Franccis declared in a resolute tone.