120 THE OPPERMANNS Age. Gustav Oppermann and Rector Franccis conversed in the same vein as the ancestors of the Reetor. But before the meal had come to an end it occurred forcibly to Franccis that he would have to redeem yet another of the promises which Little Thundereloud had extorted from him. For, when he was telling Frau Franccis what a charming lit- tle book he was going to take to Gustav Oppermann, she had said to hirn: "If you are going to see your friend tornorrow, you might diseuss your Oppermann ease. He should persuade the young seamp to settle that dispute with Senior Master Vogelsang onee for all. Things like that cannot be left in the air nowadays." She had given Franccis such a sermon about it, that he had finally assured her he would talk the matter over with Gustav. Now, therefore, he mentioned it. Cautiously beginning with a few general observations, he broached the matter. The war had made changes in the German language. It had introduced new ideas and new words and intensified the vocabulary and syntax. If the new turns of expression would be adopted to the exclusion of others, the result would be disgusting. If, how- ever, what was good in the old were united earefully to what is good in the new, a style, less sentimental than the earlier German, would be created. It would be stranger, more austere, more rational, more virile. Many of his boys had a fine ear for this new, and as far as he was concerned, welcome German. Berthold Oppermann had one of the finest. He combined an appreciation of the technical progress of the present century with a lively interest in humanistic matters, in the mind of man. It eould only be hoped that the irritating new teacher whom they had planted in his beloved institution, like a po- tato in a tulip bed, would not spoil things too much. And then he related the Vogelsang affair. Gustav listened without particular interest. Did Franccis ex- pect hirn, Gustav, to regarcl this case as a real problem? Here