Page:H.M. The Patrioteer.djvu/344

336

"Fellow-citizens, you also are in danger to-day of being betrayed by that materialism and of becoming its prey. Let this man speak."

"No!"

"He shall speak, afterwards you can ask him how much in hard cash those opinions are worth, which he has the impertinence to call patriotic. Ask him who bought his house, for what purpose, and to whose advantage."

"Wulckow!" The word was shouted from the platform, but the audience took it up. Diederich was pushed against his will by irresistible hands up to the steps of the platform. He looked around in search of counsel. Old Buck was sitting motionless, his clenched fist resting on his knee, and his eyes never left Diederich. Heuteufel, Cohn, all the members of the committee, were waiting for his collapse, with an expression of cold eagerness on their faces. And the audience shouted, "Wulckow! Wulckow!" He stammered something about calumny, his heart was beating furiously, and for a moment he shut his eyes, in the hope that he was going to faint and would thus get out of the dilemma. But he did not faint, and, as there was no alternative, a terrible courage possessed him. He seized his pocketbook, to make sure of his weapon, and with something like the joy of battle he surveyed his enemy, that sly old man, who had at last torn off the mask of the paternal friend and confessed his hatred. Diederich glared at him and shook both his fists in front of him. Then he faced the audience aggressively.

"Do you want to earn some money?" he bawled, like a street-hawker above the din—and all was silent as if at a magic command. "Every one can earn some money from me," he yelled with undiminished violence. "To every one who can prove how much I made on the sale of my house I will pay the same again!"

Nobody seemed prepared for this. The contractors were the first to cry "Bravo!" Then the Christians and the