far as Father is concerned, although Dora declares that Father makes a
favourite of me; but that's only her fancy. At Christmas and other times
we always get the same sort of presents, and that's the real test.
Rosa Plank always gets at least three times as much as the rest of the
family, that's what it is to be a favourite.

August 12th. I can't write every day for I spend most of my time
with the Warths. Oswald can't stand Robert, he says he is a cad and
a greenhorn. What vulgar phrases. For three days I haven't spoken to
Oswald except when I really had to. When I told Erna and Liesel about
it, they said that brothers were always rude to their sisters. I said,
I should like to know why. Besides, Robert is generally very nice to his
sisters. They said, Yes before you, because he's on his best behaviour
with you. Yesterday we laughed like anything when he told us what fun
the boys make of their masters. That story about the cigarette ends
was screamingly funny. They have a society called T. Au. M., that is
in Latin Be Silent or Die in initial letters. No one may betray the
society's secrets, and when they make a new member he has to strip off
all his clothes and lie down naked and every one spits on his chest and
rubs it and says: Be One of Us, but all in Latin. Then he has to go to
the eldest and biggest who gives him two or three cuts with a cane and
he has to swear that he will never betray anyone. Then everyone smokes
a cigar and touches him with the lighted end on the arm or somewhere
and says: Every act of treachery will burn you like that. And then the
eldest, who has a special name which I can't remember, tattoos on him
the word Taum, that is Be Silent or Die, and a heart with the name of
a girl. Robert says that if he had known me sooner he would have chosen
"Gretchen." I asked him what name he had tattooed on him, but he said
he was not allowed to tell. I shall tell Oswald to look when they
are bathing and to tell me. In this society they abuse the masters