the business manager of the "Netzig Journal," who had the run of Gausenfeld, said pointblank that it was a crime against oneself to take up the defence of people who had shot their bolt. Tietz also drew attention to the fact that old Klüsing, who could have ended the whole thing with a word, took good care to say nothing. He was ill, and, only on his account, the hearing was postponed indefinitely.
That, however, did not prevent him from selling his factory. This was the latest, the "significant changes in a large enterprise of the utmost importance to the industrial life of Netzig," to which the "Netzig Journal" made occult reference. Klüsing had joined a Berlin syndicate. When asked why he did not take any action, Diederich produced the letter in which Klüsing offered him the sale before any one else. "And on absolutely unique terms," he added. "Unfortunately, I am deeply engaged with my brother-in-law in Eschweiler, I am not even sure that I shall not have to leave Netzig." But as an expert he answered an inquiry of Rothgroschen's, who made the reply public, that the prospectus was, if anything, an understatement of the facts. Gausenfeld, as a matter of fact, was a gold mine. The purchase of shares, which were put on the open market, could be strongly recommended. And, it so happened, there was a great demand for the shares in Netzig. How impartial and uninfluenced by his personal interests Diederich's opinion was, came out under special circumstances, to wit, when old Buck was looking for money. The latter had gone so far, his family and his sense of public duty had brought him to such a point, that even his friends refused to encourage him any further. Then Diederich intervened. He gave the old man a second mortgage on his house in the Fleischhauergrube. "He must have been desperately in need of the money," Diederich used to remark whenever he told the story. "When he accepts it from me, his strongest political opponent! Who would have believed it once upon a time?" Diederich gratefully contemplated fate. … He added that the house would
