ready cut off.

"I shall want wood for the oven," said the implacable Nanon.

"Well, take what you want," he answered sadly; "but in that case you
must make us a fruit-tart, and you'll cook the whole dinner in the oven.
In that way you won't need two fires."

"Goodness!" cried Nanon, "you needn't tell me that."

Grandet cast a look that was well-nigh paternal upon his faithful
deputy.

"Mademoiselle," she cried, when his back was turned, "we shall have the
_galette_."

Pere Grandet returned from the garden with the fruit and arranged a
plateful on the kitchen-table.

"Just see, monsieur," said Nanon, "what pretty boots your nephew has.
What leather! why it smells good! What does he clean it with, I wonder?
Am I to put your egg-polish on it?"

"Nanon, I think eggs would injure that kind of leather. Tell him you
don't know how to black morocco; yes, that's morocco. He will get you
something himself in Saumur to polish those boots with. I have heard
that they put sugar into the blacking to make it shine."

"They look good to eat," said the cook, putting the boots to her nose.
"Bless me! if they don't smell like madame's eau-de-cologne. Ah! how
funny!"

"Funny!" said her master. "Do you call it funny to put more money into
boots than the man who stands in them is worth?"

"Monsieur," she said, when Grandet returned the second time, after
locking the fruit-garden, "won't you have the _pot-au-feu_ put on once
or twice a week on account of your nephew?"

"Yes."

"Am I to go to the butcher's?"

"Certainly not. We will make the broth of fowls; the farmers will bring
them. I shall tell Cornoiller to shoot some crows; they make the best
soup in the world."

"Isn't it true, monsieur, that crows eat the dead?"

"You are a fool, Nanon. They eat what they can get, like the rest of the
world. Don't we all live on the dead? What are legacies?"

Monsieur Grandet, having no further orders to give, drew out his watch,
and seeing that he had half an hour to dispose of before breakfast, he
took his hat, went and kissed his daughter, and said to her:

"Do you want to come for a walk in the fields, down by the Loire? I have
something to do there."

Eugenie fetched her straw bonnet, lined with pink taffeta; then the
father and daughter went down the winding street to the shore.

"Where are you going at this early hour?" said Cruchot, the notary,
meeting them.

"To see something," answered Grandet, not duped by the ma