“Hark ye, my friend,” said the postman, when he rejoined the valet an hour after this encounter, “if your master is in love with the girl, he is in for a famous task. I doubt you’ll not succeed in seeing her. In the ten years that I’ve been postman in Paris, I have seen plenty of different kinds of doors! But I can tell you, and no fear of being called a liar by any of my comrades, there never was a door so mysterious as M. de San-Real’s. No one can get into the house without the Lord knows what counter-word; and, notice, it has been selected on purpose between a courtyard and a garden to avoid any communication with other houses. The porter is an old Spaniard, who never speaks a word of French, but peers at people as Vidocq might, to see if they are not thieves. If a lover, a thief, or you—I make no comparisons—could get the better of this first wicket, well, in the first hall, which is shut by a glazed door, you would run across a butler surrounded by lackeys, an old joker more savage and surly even than the porter. If any one gets past the porter’s lodge, my butler comes out, waits for you at the entrance, and puts you through a cross-examination like a criminal. That has happened to me, a mere postman. He took me for an eavesdropper in disguise, he said, laughing at his nonsense. As for the servants, don’t hope to get aught out of them; I think they are mutes, no one in the neighborhood knows the color of their speech; I don’t know what wages they can pay them to keep them from talk and drink; the fact is, they are not to be got at, whether because they are afraid of being shot, or that they have some enormous sum to lose in the case of an indiscretion. If your master is fond enough of Mademoiselle Paquita Valdes to surmount all these obstacles, he certainly won’t triumph over Dona Concha Marialva, the duenna who accompanies her and would put her under her petticoats sooner than leave her. The two women look as if they were sewn to one another.”
“All that you say, worthy postman,” went on Laurent, after having drunk off his wine, “confirms me in what I have learned before. Upon my word, I thought they were making fun of me! The fruiterer opposite told me that of nights they let loose dogs whose food is hung up on stakes just out of their reach. These cursed animals think, therefore, that any one likely to come in has designs on their victuals, and would tear one to pieces. You will tell me one might throw them down pieces, but it seems they have been trained to touch nothing except from the hand of the porter.”
“The porter of the Baron de Nucingen, whose garden joins at the top that of the Hotel San-Real, told me the same thing,” replied the postman.
“Good! my master knows him,” said Laurent, to himself. “Do you know,” he went on, leering at the postman, “I serve a master who is a rare man, and if he took it into his head to kiss the sole of the foot of an empress, she would have to give in to him. If he had need of you, which is what I wish for you, for he is generous, could one count on you?”
“Lord, Monsieur Laurent, my name is Moinot. My name is written exactly like Moineau, magpie: M-o-i-n-o-t, Moinot.”
“Exactly,” said Laurent.
“I live at No. 11, Rue des Trois Freres, on the fifth floor,” went on Moinot; “I have a wife and four children. If what you want of me doesn’t transgress the limits of my conscience and my official duties, you understand! I am your man.”
“You are an honest fellow,” said Laurent, shaking his hand....
“Paquita Valdes is, no doubt, the mistress of the Marquis de San-Real, the friend of King Ferdinand. Only an old Spanish mummy of eighty years is capable of taking such precautions,” said Henri, when his valet de chambre had related the result of his researches.
“Monsieur,” said Laurent, “unless he takes a balloon no one can get into that hotel.”