The Consul took the cues out of the rack. “Shall we play a carambolage, Senator?” he asked. He went around and closed the pockets on both tables. “Who is playing with us? Gratjens? The Doctor? All right. Then will you take the other table, Gratjens and Justus? Köppen, you’ll have to play.”
The wine-merchant stood up and listened, with his mouth full of smoke. A violent gust of wind whistled between the houses, lashed the window-panes with rain, and howled down the chimney.
“Good Lord!” he said, blowing out the smoke. “Do you think the Wullenwewer will get into port, Buddenbrook? What abominable weather!”
Yes, and the news from Travemünde was not of the best, Consul Kröger agreed, chalking his cue. Storms everywhere on the coast. Nearly as bad as in 1824, the year of the great flood in St. Petersburg. Well, here was the coffee.
They poured it out and drank a little and began their game. The talk turned upon the Customs Union, and Consul Buddenbrook waxed enthusiastic.
“An inspiration, gentlemen,” he said. He finished a shot and turned to the other table, where the topic had begun. “We ought to join at the earliest opportunity.”
Herr Köppen disagreed. He fairly snorted in opposition. “How about our independence?” he asked incensed, supporting himself belligerently on his cue. “How about our self-determination? Would Hamburg consent to be a party to this Prussian scheme? We might as well be annexed at once! Heaven save us, what do we want of a customs union? Aren’t we well enough as we are?”
“Yes, you and your red wine, Köppen. And the Russian products are all right. But there is little or nothing else imported. As for exports, well, we send a little corn to Holland and England, it is true. But I think we are far from being well enough as we are. In days gone by a very different business went on. Now, with the Customs Union, the Mecklenburgs and Schleswig-Holstein would be opened up—and private business would increase beyond all reckoning....”
“But look here, Buddenbrook,” Gratjens broke in, leaning far over the table and shifting his cue in his bony hand as he took careful aim, “I don’t get the idea. Certainly our own system is perfectly simple and practical. Clearing on the security of a civic oath—”
“A fine old institution,” the Consul admitted.