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.
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