As I disposed of it at leisure—for it was scalding, and had, besides, in an Epicurean way, to be husbanded as a relish to my portion of simple loaf—I watched the rotund but brisk dame prepare another instalment of the superior, or penny, brew against the next influx of customers. The first clientèle ‹it appeared in course of friendly if fitful conversation› came about six o’clock—journeymen without a ménagère at home, on their way to their day’s task; or night-workers in the Halles, on their way to morning sleep. The next one would begin soon—clerks, workgirls, and small employés who have to be at their post about eight. Then the demand for the penny bowl would rise afresh about noon.
To one who was even then tasting the full value of the finished product the method of production had the interest of actuality, and was otherwise enlightening. And, pardi! it is worth recording, as an instance of what could be done with raw material to the value of twelve sous—less than sixpence—to provide twenty people with a savoury dishful of broth and leave a distinct turnover of profit.
These—as far as I could judge—were about a score of medium-sized onions of the more pungent kind ‹twopence, four sous or four cents›; half a pound or thereabouts of butter, salt butter it is true, but your Parisian insists wherever he can upon cuisine au beurre ‹six sous›; a ladle-full of flour ‹say one farthing, half a cent›; something like two sous’ worth of stale bread, baker’s shop remnants. Leaving the cost of firing out of consideration—and in thrifty ingenious French hands it would be small—the return would be like thirty per cent. on the outlay.
As for the technique of the brewing, it was simple but elegant. The sliced onions, fried in the butter at the bottom of the iron pot to a pleasing sunset colour under the watchful eye of the matron, were at the right moment powdered with the allowance of flour and stirred until the suitable appetizing brown was achieved—“The flour is just to thicken the bouillon, you understand, my lad,” the benevolent operator was pleased to comment, noticing inquisitiveness.—Then, at the precise moment of alchemic projection, the sliced shreds of bread were precipitated in the caldron, and gently turned round with a wooden spoon to let them take unto themselves all the unction of the butter, all the essence of the succulent bulbs. And presently the whole thing was drowned under a cataract of scalding hot water ‹some two gallons›. After a bubble or two of boiling the combination was completed and the savoury caldron was set aside upon a nest of smouldering ashes, ready against the next breakfast seeker.
And the escholier, having absorbed the last crumb and the last spoonful, hastened, greatly refreshed, by every conceivable short cut to his heights of Montmartre—Mons Martyrum, by the way, some etymologists insist on dubbing, in opposition to the Mons Martis theory, in regard that it was the site of the martyrdom of St. Denis, the French “Champion of Christendom.”
VIRGIL ON “DOGGIES”
He was a trifle late—no doubt as a result of short cuts—and Mr. Gilchrist proportionately stern, just at first. But the dear enthusiastic teacher gradually mellowed under the influence of that morning’s reading—the “Georgics,” most enchanting of all Garden Talk volumes. The old scholar’s geniality had completely returned by the time we reached that “doggy” passage of the Third Book beginning with “Nec tibi cura canum fuerit postrema.”
I can still see him smiling confidently at me over the line, “Let not thy dogs be the last of thy cares....” There was something prophetic about it!