“Stay! What will you give for it?”
“Two francs.”
“Get along with you!”
As Catherine eyes the chicken which she secretly admires and openly abuses, another cook comes up and lays her hand on its comely breast. It is a decisive moment, but Catherine is equal to the emergency.
“Stand off there! I’m here first.”
Then, with a secret resolve that her demoiselles shall dine on that little plump poulet, she offers fifty sous and carries off the prize. To see her enter our salon bearing a waiter on which are a dozen fine rosy apples and two large russet pears, with the question, “Guess how much I paid for all?” written in every line of her shrewd old face, is something worth coming to Europe for. To make a sharp bargain, to cook a good dinner, and never to waste anything, these are the aims of her life and the themes of her discourse.
Our snug appartement is opposite the Place des Eçoles, where the wood and cattle are sold; and the first peep in the morning gives us a picture, lively enough and foreign enough to make us look and look again many times during the day till late in the afternoon when the Place is nearly bare; and the aspect of the few patient but rather dejected-looking peasants whose wood has not yet found purchasers almost tempts us to run over and buy a load or two, just for the pleasure of sending the poor creatures home with lighter hearts and heavier pockets. What would Catherine say to that, I wonder?
Besides the interest which we feel in the various natural hangers-on of the wood-carts (and each one has from two to five of both sexes and all sizes), we get no small amusement from their patrons, who represent all sorts of townspeople, from the fat old woman of the green grocery and sausage-shop over the way, who peddles with easy affability among the market-people, to the lordly young Englishman who dashes on to the Place with the air of a conquering hero, and loftily indicates with his riding-whip the load that has the honor to meet his approval.
