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"No, no! I'm an old hand at it," answered the former cooper.
At the moment when Grandet was mending his worm-eaten staircase and
whistling with all his might, in remembrance of the days of his youth,
the three Cruchots knocked at the door.
"Is it you, Monsieur Cruchot?" asked Nanon, peeping through the little
grating.
"Yes," answered the president.
Nanon opened the door, and the light from the hearth, reflected on the
ceiling, enabled the three Cruchots to find their way into the room.
"Ha! you've come a-greeting," said Nanon, smelling the flowers.
"Excuse me, messieurs," cried Grandet, recognizing their voices; "I'll
be with you in a moment. I'm not proud; I am patching up a step on my
staircase."
"Go on, go on, Monsieur Grandet; a man's house is his castle," said
the president sententiously.
Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet rose. The president, profiting by the
darkness, said to Eugenie:
"Will you permit me, mademoiselle, to wish you, on this the day of
your birth, a series of happy years and the continuance of the health
which you now enjoy?"
He offered her a huge bouquet of choice flowers which were rare in
Saumur; then, taking the heiress by the elbows, he kissed her on each
side of her neck with a complacency that made her blush. The
president, who looked like a rusty iron nail, felt that his courtship
was progressing.
"Don't stand on ceremony," said Grandet, entering. "How well you do
things on fete-days, Monsieur le president!"
"When it concerns mademoiselle," said the abbe, armed with his own
bouquet, "every day is a fete-day for my nephew."
The abbe kissed Eugenie's hand. As for Maitre Cruchot, he boldly
kissed her on both cheeks, remarking: "How we sprout up, to be sure!
Every year is twelve months."
As he replaced the candlestick beside the clock, Grandet, who never
forgot his own jokes, and repeated them to satiety when he thought
them funny, said,--
"As this is Eugenie's birthday let us illuminate."
He carefully took off the branches of the candelabra, put a socket on
each pedestal, took from Nanon a new tallow candle with paper twisted
round the end of it, put it into the hollow, made it firm, lit it, and
then sat down beside his wife, looking alternately at his friends, his
daughter, and the two candles. The Abbe Cruchot, a plump, puffy little
man, with a red wig plastered down and a face like an old female
gambler, said as he stretched out his feet, well shod in stout shoes
with silver buckles: "The des Grassins have not come?"
"Not yet," said Grandet.
"But are they coming?" asked the old notary, twisting his face, which
had as many holes as a collander, into a queer grimace.
"I think so," answered Madame Grandet.
"Are your vintages all finished?" said Monsieur de Bonfons to Grandet.
"Yes, all of them," said the old man, rising to walk up and down the
room, his chest swelling with pride as he said the words, "all of
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