"The Comte de Carvajal; he's a Spaniard."
"The deuce! the Comte de Carvajal!—Yes, I believe that is a great Spanish family.—Sandis! but I must confess, lovely hostess, that it seems to me rather strange that this grand seigneur, instead of occupying a handsome mansion in the neighborhood of the Palais-Cardinal or the Arsenal, comes to Place aux Chats to nest—with the Cemetery of the Innocents opposite! It is not absolutely cheerful—and a hotel where his horses and carriages cannot be accommodated!"
"What does this mean, Monsieur Passedix? you are crying down my hotel now! You call this a bad quarter—then why did you come here to lodge? And why have you lodged more than a year on this Place aux Chats, which you despise?"
"I, despise Place aux Chats! God forbid, dear Madame Cadichard! On the contrary, I consider it most romantic; and then I, being afraid of nothing, not even of ghosts and phantoms, am not at all sorry to live just opposite a cemetery; for if it should happen to occur to some dead man to come to say a word to me at night, I swear to you that I should be overjoyed to have news from the other world."
"Hush—impious man!—He makes me shudder over my soup!—You know perfectly well that the dead don't return!"
"I know that there are a great many things that don't return, unhappily; and you know it, too, plump Cadichard!"
"What do you mean by that, monsieur le chevalier?"
"Mon Dieu! how time flies with us all!—But let us return to your Spanish grandee, who has chosen the Hôtel du Sanglier for his abode; he must have a numerous suite of servants and horses and carriages?"
"Not at all; he has none of those things. He is alone; it seems that he is at Paris incognito!"
"What! not an esquire, not a valet, not even a single little mule to prance along the Fossés Jaunes?"