very first her appearance was enough to draw custom. Several elderly
men in the quarter used to come, among them a retired coach-builder,
one Croizeau. Beholding this miracle of female loveliness through the
window-panes, he took it into his head to read the newspapers in the
beauty's reading-room; and a sometime custom-house officer, named
Denisart, with a ribbon in his button-hole, followed the example.
Croizeau chose to look upon Denisart as a rival. '_Monsieur_,' he said
afterwards, 'I did not know what to buy for you!'

"That speech should give you an idea of the man. The Sieur Croizeau
happens to belong to a particular class of old man which should be
known as 'Coquerels' since Henri Monnier's time; so well did Monnier
render the piping voice, the little mannerisms, little queue, little
sprinkling of powder, little movements of the head, prim little
manner, and tripping gait in the part of Coquerel in _La Famille
Improvisee_. This Croizeau used to hand over his halfpence with a
flourish and a 'There, fair lady!'

"Mme. Ida Bonamy the aunt was not long in finding out through a
servant that Croizeau, by popular report of the neighborhood of the
Rue de Buffault, where he lived, was a man of exceeding stinginess,
possessed of forty thousand francs per annum. A week after the
instalment of the charming librarian he was delivered of a pun:

"'You lend me books (livres), but I give you plenty of francs in
return,' said he.

"A few days later he put on a knowing little air, as much as to say,
'I know you are engaged, but my turn will come one day; I am a
widower.'