“Welcome, welcome, monsieur!” said the Pastor Schweitzer, shaking Maître Frantz’s hand. “Be seated. I am delighted to make your acquaintance.”
He then sent the Jew away, and hurried to the kitchen, crying—
“Gredel! Gredel! here’s Coucou Peter!”
Gredel, who was getting supper ready, flew to the door of the sitting-room; three or four youngsters toddled after her, shouting, chattering, and demanding slices of bread-and-jam.
“Good day, Gredel,” said Coucou Peter, kissing his wife on both cheeks; “all goes well with you, my little Gredel?”
“Yes, good-for-nothing, I’m quite well,” she replied, half laughingly, half seriously. “You’ve come back because you have not a sou left, I suppose?”
“Come, come, Gredel, be reasonable; I’m only on my way through this town; it’s not worth making my life wretched.”
The children hung on to the tail of the fiddler’s coat, and called him “Nonon Coucou Peter,” to get something out of him; and the pastor rubbed his hands merrily.
When Coucou Peter had completely cajoled his little wife, who was, after all, not so thin, and when he had kissed the children, one after the other, and whispered to them that his travelling-trunk was filled with nice things, Gredel returned to the kitchen; and Coucou Peter, as well as the pastor and Mathéus, seated themselves before a bottle of old wolxheim.
The whole house wore a holiday aspect; the children sang, whistled, and ran into the street to watch for the arrival of the promised travelling-trunk; the fowls—the necks of which were wrung by Gredel—uttered piercing cries; Coucou Peter gave an account of his distant peregrinations, of his title of “Grand Rabbi,” and of his future prospects; the illustrious philosopher admired himself in the course of these marvellous tales; the glasses were filled and emptied, as if by themselves; and the fat stomach of Pastor Schweitzer shook merrily at the recital of the innumerable adventures of his old comrade.