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Updated: July 1, 2025
He pushed his way to the glass-door into the street, totally unconscious of the stir his behaviour was causing among the stout women in bonnets and the red-faced men with napkins tucked under their chins who were dining near, fumbled at the handle, and tottered out. 'Quel animal! said the enraged dame du comptoir, who had noticed the incident.
He walked into the shop, and recognised, in the stout, middle-aged woman sitting there, the trim young bourgeoise to whom he had often handed a fifty centime piece in those days which seemed so distant as almost to belong to another life. "Have you still a provincial paper room?" he asked, in a low tone. "Yes," said the dame du comptoir, suavely, "but we have to charge a franc for admission."
With his spirit of enterprise, he had greatly enlarged the business left him by old Du Hordel, transforming it into a really universal comptoir, through which passed merchandise from all parts of the world.
There is no rule of good manners or morals which makes it improper, at a cafe to fix one's eyes upon the dame de comptoir; the lady is, in the nature of things, a part of your "consommation." We were therefore free to admire without restriction the handsomest person I had ever seen give change for a five-franc piece.
Even before landing, the pilot had assured me that a "baby" was on sale at the Comptoir, but on inquiry it proved to have died. I was by no means sanguine of success when the fight is against Time, the Old Man usually wins the day.
In a few minutes the Frenchman entered, paused at the comptoir, as was his habit, to address a polite salutation to the well-dressed lady who there presided, nodded as usual to Armand Monnier, then glanced round, recognized Graham with a smile, and approached his table with the quiet grace of movement by which he was distinguished.
The burly figure leaning on the comptoir straightened up as if stung into action; the softened eyes kindled with speechless wrath and flamed into the imperturbable, debonair face of Monsieur de Beaufort. One of the silver pieces rolled upon the floor. Calvert stooped quickly for it. "Madame will permit me," he said, courteously, and, lifting his hat, placed the coin upon the desk.
She had already moved towards the comptoir to pay her few sous, when, chancing to look up in a mirror which hung above the counter, reflecting the interior of the cafe, she saw the stranger, after casting a hurried glance around him, remove from her plate the broken roll and even the crumbs she had left, and as hurriedly sweep them into his pocket-handkerchief.
Paris when your skies are greying, how many of us know you? Do we know your Rue du Pont Neuf, with its silent melodrama under the dawning heavens, or do we know only the farce of your Montmartre? Do we know the drama of your Comptoir, of your Rue Montorgueil, when your skies are faintly lighting, or do we know only the burlesque of your Maxim's and your Catélans?
From babies to barmaids is indeed a leap, reversing the ordinary process of going from the sublime to the ridiculous, for while to all but appreciative mammas those infantile specimens of humanity savour largely of the ridiculous, there can be no question that the present generation of dames de comptoir is a very sublime article indeed.
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