was let out to different families.

As soon as these three came home from school, they would stand
outside the Schliebens' villa. They could not be driven away, they
would wait there patiently until Wolfgang joined them.

"He's like a brother to my Hans," the coachman used to say, and he
would greet him with a specially condescending flick of his whip from
his high seat. And the porter and his wife used to state with much
satisfaction: "Yes, old Schlieben always touches his hat, and she, his
lady, also says 'how do you do?' to us in a very friendly style, but
the little one, oh, he's quite different."

Those were wild games the four comrades played together, and in
which Frida was reckoned to be quite a boy: catch, hide and seek, but
best of all, robbers and policemen. How Wolf's eyes sparkled when he,
as the robber captain, gave the policeman, Hans Flebbe, a kick in the
stomach, so that he fell backwards on the ground and lay for a time
without moving from pain.

"I've shot him," he said to his mother proudly.

Kate, who had been called to the window by the noisy shrieks of the
children who were rushing about wildly in the waste field behind the
villa, had beckoned to her boy to come in. He had come unwillingly; but
he had come. Now he stood breathless before her, and she
stroked the damp hair away from the face that was wet with
perspiration: "What a sight you look! And here--look."

She pointed reproachfully to his white blouse that was covered with
dirt. Where in all the world had he made himself so filthy? there were
no real pools there. And his trousers. The right leg was slit open the
whole way down, the left one had a three-cornered hole in the knee.

Pooh, that was nothing. He wanted to rush away again, he was
trembling with impatience; his playfellows were crouching behind the
bush, they dared not come out before he, their captain, came back to
them. He strove against the hand that was holding him; but his
struggles were of no avail that time, his father came out of the next
room.

"You are to stop here. You ought to feel ashamed of yourself to
resist your mother like that. Off with you, go to your room and prepare
your lessons for tomorrow."

Paul Schlieben spoke sharply. It had made him angry to see how the
boy had striven with hands and feet against his delicate wife.

"You rude boy, I'll teach you how to behave to your mother.
Here"--he seized hold of him by the scruff of his neck and dragged h