?"

"Ah!" said the postman, interrupting the _valet de chambre_ and
observing him attentively, "you are as much a porter as I'm..."

Laurent chinked some pieces of gold before the functionary, who began to
smile.

"Come, here's the name of your quarry," he said, taking from his leather
wallet a letter bearing a London stamp, upon which the address, "To
Mademoiselle Paquita Valdes, Rue Saint Lazare, Hotel San-Real, Paris,"
was written in long, fine characters, which spoke of a woman's hand.

"Could you tap a bottle of Chablis, with a few dozen oysters, and a
_filet saute_ with mushrooms to follow it?" said Laurent, who wished to
win the postman's valuable friendship.

"At half-past nine, when my round is finished---- Where?"

"At the corner of the Rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin and the Rue
Neuve-des-Mathurins, at the _Puits sans Vin_," said Laurent.

"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 o