“Do you call it fine, Herr Consul?” Senator Langhals spoke with some heat. “I am not a merchant; but to speak frankly—well, I think this civic oath business has become little short of a farce: everybody makes light of it, and the State pockets the loss. One hears things that are simply scandalous. I am convinced that our entry into the Customs Union, so far as the Senate is concerned—”
Herr Köppen flung down his cue. “Then there will be a conflick,” he said heatedly, forgetting to be careful with his pronunciation. “I know what I’m sayin’—God help you, but you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, beggin’ your pardon.”
Well, thank goodness! thought the rest of the company, as Jean Jacques entered at this point. He and Pastor Wunderlich came together, arm in arm, two cheerful, unaffected old men from another and less troubled age.
“Here, my friends,” he began. “I have something for you: a little rhymed epigram from the French.”
He sat down comfortably opposite the billiard-players, who leaned upon their cues across the tables. Drawing a paper from his pocket and laying his long finger with the signet ring to the side of his pointed nose, he read aloud, with a mock-heroic intonation:
“When the Maréchal Saxe and the proud Pompadour
Were driving out gaily in gilt coach and four,
Frelon spied the pair: ‘Oh, see them,’ he cried:
‘The sword of our king—and his sheath, side by side.’”
Herr Köppen looked disconcerted for a minute. Then he dropped the “conflick” where it was and joined in the hearty laughter that echoed to the ceiling of the billiard-room. Pastor Wunderlich withdrew to the window, but the movement of his shoulders betrayed that he was chuckling to himself.