Scarcely was he gone than Fred Triddelfitz came in carrying a portmanteau, club-books, shirts, and clothes of all kinds. He laid the portmanteau on a chair by the window, and began to pack up his things that he might be able to cut a figure in Demmin, when he caught sight of Hawermann's farm-book; for the old man had forgotten in his excitement to shut his desk.--"That'll, do for me," said Fred, and seating himself in the window as it was beginning to grow dark, he set to work to enter the corn-account. Before he had quite finished Christian rushed into the room again: "Mr. Triddelfitz, you must go at once--this very moment--and fetch a rape-cloth from the granary, we are going to pack the mare in wet sheets." When Fred heard footsteps coming he hid the book behind him on the chair, and when Christian thrust the key of the granary into his hand, he left the book lying on the chair and went away with the groom. He met Mary Möller coming from the cow-house just as he got to the granary door; "Mary," he cried, "will you be so kind as to put up my things for me. You'll find them with the portmanteau on the chair at the parlour window; be sure you don't forget the books."--Mary did as she was asked. It was very dark and she was in love, so she packed Hawermann's farm-book as well as the novels from the lending library. When Hawermann came back from the stable he locked his desk without noticing that anything was missing, and next morning Fred Triddelfitz set off at cock-crow for Demmin with his wheat and portmanteau, never thinking he had anything with him that he ought not to have had. After the old bailiff had given the labourers their orders for the last time, he returned to his house to collect and pack his things so that he might leave that afternoon, but before he was quite ready, Daniel Sadenwater came in, and desired him to come to Mr. von Rambow. Alick had spent a very restless night; his best thoroughbred mare in which he had placed his hopes had been taken ill; the suspicion Pomuchelskopp had aroused, troubled him; the difficulty of farming by himself overwhelmed him, and then he must pay Hawermann's wages at once, to say nothing of various small sums he had got the bailiff to pay for him to the labourers, and the total amount of which he did not know. The bailiff had given him warning, not he the bailiff, and he must try to think of some pretext to put off paying him at once what he owed him. A good reason for such conduct is difficult to find, but a subject of quarrel is always to be had, and may be made to serve as a pretext for putting off the payment of one's debts. It is a wretched means to gain such an end, but a very common one! And Alick determined to make use of it, thereby showing how much his pride as a man and a gentleman had been lowered. Nothing has so much influence on a weak man's character as being short of money, especially when he wants to keep up appearances. "Needy and bumptious" is a true proverb.