tutinal
appearance of his friend.

When Pere Grandet went to "see something," the notary knew by experience
there was something to be got by going with him; so he went.

"Come, Cruchot," said Grandet, "you are one of my friends. I'll show you
what folly it is to plant poplar-trees on good ground."

"Do you call the sixty thousand francs that you pocketed for those that
were in your fields down by the Loire, folly?" said Maitre Cruchot,
opening his eyes with amazement. "What luck you have had! To cut down
your trees at the very time they ran short of white-wood at Nantes, and
to sell them at thirty francs!"

Eugenie listened, without knowing that she approached the most solemn
moment of her whole life, and that the notary was about to bring down
upon her head a paternal and supreme sentence. Grandet had now reached
the magnificent fields which he owned on the banks of the Loire, where
thirty workmen were employed in clearing away, filling up, and levelling
the spots formerly occupied by the poplars.

"Maitre Cruchot, see how much ground this tree once took up! Jean," he
cried to a laborer, "m-m-measure with your r-r-rule, b-both ways."

"Four times eight feet," said the man.

"Thirty-two feet lost," said Grandet to Cruchot. "I had three hundred
poplars in this one line, isn't that so? Well, then, three h-h-hundred
times thir-thirty-two lost m-m-me five hundred in h-h-hay; add twice as
much for the side rows,--fifteen hundred; the middle rows as much more.
So we may c-c-call it a th-thousand b-b-bales of h-h-hay--"

"Very good," said Cruchot, to help out his friend; "a thousand bales are
worth about six hundred francs."

"Say t-t-twelve hundred, be-c-cause there's three or four hundred francs
on the second crop. Well, then, c-c-calculate that t-twelve thousand
francs a year for f-f-forty years with interest c-c-comes to--"

"Say sixty thousand francs," said the notary.

"I am willing; c-c-comes t-t-to sixty th-th-thousand. Very good,"
continued Grandet, without stuttering: "two thousand poplars forty years
old will only yield me fifty thousand francs. There's a loss. I have
found that myself," said Grandet, getting on his high horse. "Jean, fill
up all the holes except those at the bank of the river; there you are
to plant the poplars I have bought. Plant 'em there, and they'll get
nourishment from the government," he said, turning to Cruchot, and
giving a slight motion to the wen on his nose, which expressed