Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (Polish-Greek-Belgian-Hungarian).djvu/128

126 in some warm water, adding flour, thyme, and laurel leaves. Dolf noticed that the saucepan contained something else, but Nelle covered it up so quickly that he could not tell whether it were meat or cabbage. He was puzzled and tried to guess.

Gradually the contents began to boil, and a thin, brown smoke escaped from the lid which bubbled up and down. Dolf stretched his nose towards the stove and opened his nostrils wide enough for a nut to rest in each, but still he could not define the smell.

When maman Nelle went to lift the lid to see if the contents were cooking properly, he stood on tip-toe behind her back, making himself, for the fun of the thing, first quite short, and then quite tall.

Riekje laughed quietly as she looked out of the corner of her eye. Suddenly Dolf gave a cry to surprise his mother, but Nelle had seen him come up, and just at the moment when he thought to look into the pot she put down the lid and nodded to him:

"Who's caught now, Dolf?" But he cried out, laughing; "I saw that time, mother. It 's Slipper's old cat that you have put into the stew-pan, with some candle-grease."

"Yes," replied Nelle, "and next time I shall fry mice. Go and set the table, and leave me alone you bad fellow."