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22 the police station and lodge a complaint. Agnes began to cough, and Göppel gave a start. "It would make us too tired after this," he murmured. With forced good humour he said good-bye to Diederich, who ignored Agnes's hand, and lifted his hat awkwardly. Suddenly, with surprising agility, he sprang onto a passing bus, before Mahlmann could grasp what was happening. He had escaped. Now the holidays were beginning and he was free of everything. When he got to his house he threw his heaviest chemistry books to the ground with a crash, and he was preparing to send the coffee pot after them. But, hearing the noise of a door, he began at once to gather up everything again. Then he sat down quietly in a corner of the sofa, and wept with his head in his hands. If it had only not been so pleasant before! She had led him into a trap. That's the way girls were; they led you on solely for the purpose of making fun of you with another fellow. Diederich was deeply conscious that he could not challenge comparison with such a man. He contrasted himself with Mahlmann and would not have understood if any one had preferred him to the other. "How conceited I have been," he thought. "The girl who falls in love with me must be really stupid." He had a great fear lest the man from Mecklenburg should come and threaten him more seriously. "I don't want her at all. If I only could get away!" Next day he sat in deadly suspense with his door bolted. No sooner had his money arrived than he set off on his journey.

His mother, jealous and estranged, asked him what was wrong. He had grown up in such a short time. "Ah yes, the streets of Berlin!"

Diederich grasped at the chance, when she insisted that he should go to a small University and not return to Berlin. His father held that there were two sides to the question. Diederich had to give him a full account of the Göppels. Had he seen the factory? Had he been to his other business friends? Herr Hessling wished Diederich to employ his holidays in