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 Marechal 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.
Herr Hoffstede had more ammunition of the same sort in his pocket, and the gentlemen remained for some time in the billiard-room. Herr Köppen unbuttoned his waistcoat all the way down, and felt much more at ease here than in the dining-room. He gave vent to droll low-German expressions at every turn, and at frequent intervals began reciting to himself with enormous relish:
“When the Marechal Saxe…”
It sounded quite different in his harsh bass.
37
