These difficulties proved no insuperable barrier to Janet. A glance, an eloquent gesture, and a copious use of the phrase _comme ça_, bridged the worst gaps in the course of communication. _Comme ça_ alone, used at the end of the index finger, so to speak, worked wonders. Single-handed, it was mightier than a whole battalion of text-book phrases. Yet Janet flattered herself that she could, at a pinch, have dispensed even with this omnipotent demonstrative. To be sure, she was far swifter at divining other people’s wishes than at getting her own wishes divined. Still, though she had a genius for the first process, she had at least a talent for the second. "It would be strange," she thought, "if a New Yorker could not talk inarticulately in more languages than one." The shop assistants met her attempts to communicate with them fully halfway. Their friendliness and courtesy in difficult situations astonished her. So did their efforts to comply with her precise wishes. It was all very different from the American shop men and girls that she was accustomed to. A New York salesman, who slept in a hall room in the Bronx and lunched at Child’s, on a ham sandwich and tea or on griddle cakes and skimmed milk, was professionally guiltless of every effort save one, and that was an effort to convey to each customer a sense of the latter’s abysmal insignificance; also an intimation of his supreme good luck in being waited on by the most distinguished clerk in the metropolis. Standing at a counter in New York, one might be excused for supposing that the salesman accepted the purchaser’s custom only as a grudging favor to the purchaser. Standing at a similar spot in Brussels, one might hope that the favor would be allowed to be the other way. Perhaps the Brussels salesmen did not really feel favored. In view of the final disposition of the profits, they probably merely pretended to feel so. If this was the case, their pretense carried conviction, by virtue of the artistry of their politeness. Were there not, then, as many fictions in the life of New York as in the life of Brussels? Yes, but they were neither convincing fictions nor polite ones. Artistry and politeness, Janet concluded, though they might be minor virtues, were not the minor virtues of an industrial republic. Her last errand in the Grand Magasins was to buy Claude several pair of socks. The redoubtable _comme ça_, in a choice variety of modulations, did yeoman service in facilitating the selection of the correct color, quality, size.