For the most part he had no personal feeling against the pupils whose advancement was checked by his activities. He acted as the conscientious instrument of dire necessity. Afterwards he could go to the culprit and quite honestly sympathise with him. Once he was instrumental in catching some one who had been suspected of copying. With the knowledge of the teacher, Diederich gave him a mathematical problem, the working out of which was deliberately wrong, while the final result was correct. That evening, after the cheater had been exposed, some of the students were sitting in the garden of a restaurant outside the gate singing, as they were allowed to do after gymnasium. Diederich had taken a seat beside his victim. Once, when they had emptied their glasses he slipped his right hand into that of his companion, gazed trustfully into his eyes, and began all alone to sing in a bass voice that quivered with emotion:
"Ich hatt' einen Kameraden,
Einen bessern findst du nit.…"
For the rest, with increasing school experience he could make a good show in most subjects, without going beyond what was required of him in any one, or learning anything in the world which was not prescribed in the programme. German composition was his most difficult subject, and any one who excelled at it inspired him with an inexplicable mistrust.
Since he had been promoted to the highest class his matriculation was certain, and his father and teachers felt that he ought to continue his studies. Old Hessling, having marched through the Brandenburger Tor in 1866 and 1871, decided to send Diederich to Berlin.
As he did not care to venture far from the neighbourhood of Friederichstrasse he rented a room up in Tieckstrasse, so that he had only to walk straight down and could not miss the University. As he had nothing else to do, he went there twice a day, and in the intervals he often wept from homesickness.
