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,"