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204. His close and peculiar relations with the Lauer household had not made him falter in the task before him, the defence of authority—what a lesson for Diederich! Even Wolfgang Buck admitted it after his own fashion. He looked up at Fritzsche with an expression of nausea on his face.

As the examining judge made his way towards the exit by shoving vigorously, the whispering grew louder. The Mayor's mother-in-law pointed her lorgnon at Frau Lauer and said: "A nice crowd!" Nobody contradicted her, for people had be gun to abandon the Lauers to their fate. Guste Daimchen bit her lip and Käthchen Zillich gave Diederich a quick look from under her eyelashes. Dr. Scheffelweis bent over to the head of the Buck family, pressed his hand and said sweetly: "I hope, my dear friend and supporter, that all may yet be well."

The judge gave an order to the usher. "Bring in the witness Cohn!" The witnesses for the defence were to have their turn. The judge sniffed: "There is a most unpleasant smell here," he remarked. "Krecke, open that window behind there!" He gazed searchingly at the poorer public, which was sitting closely packed. On the other hand, there was plenty of room in the lower seats, and most of all in the vicinity of Governor von Wulckow, whose hunting jacket reeked of stale perspiration. &hellip; The icy draught through the open window caused complaints amongst the out of town journalists, who were sitting stowed away in the rear. But Sprezius merely snapped his beak at them, and they huddled up in their overcoat collars.

Jadassohn looked at the witness with an air of conscious victory. Sprezius allowed him to speak for a while, then Jadassohn cleared his throat and he held up a deed in his hand. "You have been the tenant since 1889 of the shop bearing your name?" Then, without warning: "Do you admit that just at that time one of the people who supplied you with goods, a certain Lehmann, committed suicide by shooting himself in your neighbourhood?" With fiendish satisfaction he