With more than his usual alacrity, old Peter Manson, bearing under his cloak the fresh loaf which he had just procured from the baker on such advantageous terms, hastened to his not very inviting home.
Drawing from his pocket a large and rusty door-key, he applied it to the door. It turned in the lock with a creaking sound, and the door yielding to Peter's push he entered.
The room which he appropriated to his own use was in the second story. It was a large room, of some eighteen feet square, and, as it is hardly necessary to say, was not set off by expensive furniture. The articles which came under this denomination were briefly these,—a cherry table which was minus one leg, whose place had been supplied by a broom handle fitted in its place; three hard wooden chairs of unknown antiquity; an old wash-stand; a rusty stove which Peter had picked up cheap at an auction, after finding that a stove burned out less fuel than a fireplace; a few articles of crockery of different patterns, some cracked and broken; a few tin dishes, such as Peter found essential in his cooking; and a low truckle bedstead with a scanty supply of bedclothes.
Into this desolate home Peter entered.
There was an ember or two left in the stove, which the old man contrived, by hard blowing, to kindle into life. On these he placed a few sticks, part of which he had picked up in the street early in the morning, and soon there was a little show of fire, over which the miser spread his hands greedily as if to monopolize what little heat might proceed therefrom. He looked wistfully at the pile of wood remaining, but prudence withheld him from putting on any more.
"Everything costs money," he muttered to himself. "Three times a day I have to eat, and that costs a sight. Why couldn't we get along with eating once a day? That would save two thirds. Then there's fire. That costs money, too. Why isn't it always summer? Then we shouldn't need any except to cook by. It seems a sin to throw away good, bright, precious gold on what is going to be burnt up and float away in smoke. One might almost as well throw it into the river at once. Ugh! only to think of what it would cost if I couldn't pick up some sticks in the street. There was a little girl picking up some this morning when I was out. If it hadn't been for her, I should have got more. What business had she to come there, I should like to know?"
"Ugh, ugh!"
The blaze was dying out, and Peter was obliged, against his will, to put on a fresh supply of fuel.
By this time the miser's appetite began to assert itself, and rising from his crouching position over the fire he walked to the table on which he had deposited his loaf of bread. With an old jack-knife he carefully cut the loaf into two equal parts. One of these he put back into the closet. From the same place he also brought out a sausage, and placing it over the fire contrived to cook it after a fashion. Taking it off he placed it on a plate, and seated himself on a chair by the table.