“You are very kind, Papa,” the Consul’s wife said. “Tony will try her best to grow up a clever and industrious woman.... Have the boys come home from school?” she asked Ida. Tony, who from her perch on her grandfather’s knee was looking out the window, called out in the same breath: “Tom and Christian are coming up Johannes Street ... and Herr Hoffstede ... and Uncle Doctor....” The bells of St. Mary’s began to chime, ding-dong, ding-dong--rather out of time, so that one could hardly tell what they were playing; still, it was very impressive. The big and the little bell announced, the one in lively, the other in dignified tones, that it was four o’clock; and at the same time a shrill peal from the bell over the vestibule door went ringing through the entry, and Tom and Christian entered, together with the first guests, Jean Jacques Hoffstede, the poet, and Doctor Grabow, the family physician. CHAPTER II Herr Jean Jacques Hoffstede was the town poet. He undoubtedly had a few verses in his pocket for the present occasion. He was nearly as old as Johann Buddenbrook, and dressed in much the same style except that his coat was green instead of mouse-coloured. But he was thinner and more active than his old friend, with bright little greenish eyes and a long pointed nose. “Many thanks,” he said, shaking hands with the gentlemen and bowing before the ladies--especially the Frau Consul, for whom he entertained a deep regard. Such bows as his it was not given to the younger generation to perform; and he accompanied them with his pleasant quiet smile. “Many thanks for your kind invitation, my dear good people. We met these two young ones, the Doctor and I”--he pointed to Tom and Christian, in their blue tunics and leather belts--“in King Street, coming home from school. Fine lads, eh, Frau Consul? Tom is a very solid chap. He’ll have to go into the business, no doubt of that. But Christian is a devil of a fellow--a young _incroyable_, hey? I will not conceal my _engouement_. He must study, I think--he is witty and brilliant.” Old Buddenbrook used his gold snuff-box. “He’s a young monkey, that’s what he is. Why not say at once that he is to be a poet, Hoffstede?” Mamsell Jungmann drew the curtains, and soon the room was bathed in mellow flickering light from the candles in the crystal chandelier and the sconces on the writing-desk. It lighted up golden gleams in the Frau Consul’s hair. “Well, Christian,” she said, “what did you learn to-day?” It appeared that Christian had had writing, arithmetic, and singing lessons. He was a boy of seven, who already resembled his father to an almost comic extent. He had the same rather small round deep-set eyes and the same prominent aquiline nose; the lines of his face below the cheek-bones showed that it would not always retain its present childlike fulness.