Monday afternoon

I stepped into a little café that was simply a small room with a counter in the rear and a table on either side of the door. The woman behind the counter gestured for me to sit and brought me a menu, which listed just two or three choices. I ordered tea and a pear torte, which turned out to be a delicious warm mélange of fruit and cream swathed in puff pastry, and which was accompanied, for some reason, by a ficelle in a wax bag. When the bill came I was a bit surprised to see that the total came to $60, but even as I reached for my wallet a man strode out of the kitchen, picked up the bill, looked at it, frowned, then began a heated argument with the woman that I couldn't follow, as it was conducted in a language I couldn't identify. I broke off a piece of the ficelle, which was also quite tasty, and waited for the outcome.