Long before it was dark the Overall Boys were walking up and down the beautiful shore front, waiting for the first sky rocket. Hundreds of other people were waiting and watching, too. A band was playing and everybody was happy.

"Listen! The band is playing America!" cried Joe. "Three cheers for the red, white, and blue!"

"Wait a minute, Joe," said Jack. "Father says that is one of the national hymns of Switzerland. The music is the same as for our national hymn, America, but the words are different."

"It is fine, anyway, and I feel like shouting.—Three cheers for Switzerland!" said Joe.

"So do I!" said Jack. "Switzerland is a Republic and has a President, just as we have in the United States, you know. Its national motto is 'All for each, and each for all.'"

"I thought it seemed more like home than any other country over here," said Joe. "I shouldn't like to live in a country which has a King instead of a President. I like Presidents."

"But just think of it, Joe, the whole of Switzerland is only one third as large as our state of New York, and the city of New York has a million more people in it than this whole country has; father said so."

"Well, even though the country is so small," said Joe, "it has twenty-two Cantons or states, and each Canton has a special flag. I am going to buy them all for my flag collection."

"Puff! puff! There goes a sky rocket!" shouted Jack. "And there goes another! The fun has begun, Joe!"

During the next hour the boys forgot all about national hymns and Presidents and flags. They were watching fire balloons sail far out over the dark lake and disappear behind tall mountains. They were watching rockets shoot high into the sky and burst into wonderful shapes—into ships and bears and pots of flowers. They were watching the mountains glow under lovely red and blue and yellow lights. And they were imagining that they were in a fairy city, beside a fairy lake, with the wonderful mountains of Fairyland all around them.

After awhile the boys and their father got into a small boat and rowed far out on the dark fairy lake. Other boats were floating quietly about, too, each carrying a lighted Chinese lantern.

Somewhere across the water people were singing lovely Swiss songs, and all were watching the strange, fiery things in the sky above.

Mount Pilatus, which rose very high, close beside the lake, looked cold and ghostlike under the weird, blue lights.

"Would you like to hear a ghost story about Mount Pilatus, boys?" asked their father.

"Oh, of course we should! Please tell us a ghost story!" said the boys.

"Well," began their father, "you know how Pilate, the Roman governor of Galilee, allowed Jesus to be killed. It is said that Pilate was afterward driven out of Galilee, and that he came to this part of the world and drowned himself in a lake near the top of that mountain. So the mountain was named Pilatus.

"For many hundreds of years the people about here believed that Pilate's ghost came out of the lake once a year and wandered over the mountain. To protect the people from the ghost, the government of Lucerne forbade any one to go near the lake.

"Once six bold men disobeyed this law, and they were put into prison. The people still believed that Pilate's ghost lived on the mountain, and they did not want to offend it.

"It was not until fifteen hundred years after Pilate was driven from Galilee that the government of Lucerne gave permission for four men to climb the mountain and to explore the lake. As the men did not find the ghost, they decided that at last it was quiet.

"So people have been climbing the mountain ever since, and now they even have a railroad which goes away up to the little lake. How do you suppose the old ghost likes that?"

"And what do you suppose he thinks of the fire balloons that are sailing around his head to-night?" said Joe.

Suddenly somebody screamed, and then somebody else screamed. The little boats began to hurry and scurry in every direction. It looked as if all the Chinese lanterns had gone crazy.

Everybody's eyes were turned toward the sky, for up there, right above them, was a fire balloon. The fire had caught in the top of the balloon, and it was all ablaze.

Now this blazing balloon was falling straight down, down, down, toward the little boats on the lake. Of course the boats were scurrying to get out of the way, and of course the people screamed.

Each thought that the burning balloon would surely fall right into his boat, but it did not. It fell hissing and sputtering into the dark waters, right where the boats had been only a few moments before.

"Well, that was a narrow escape!" exclaimed Jack. "We can imagine now how it would seem to be in a falling flying machine. I think I don't care to try it."

Then, with many other boats, they rowed quickly back to the brightly lighted city, and the boys were soon sound asleep, resting for the next day's fun.