However, on the following morning he arrayed himself in his best apparel, and at exactly half-past eleven o’clock he rang at his employer’s door. M. Fortunat had made quick work with his clients that morning, and was ready, dressed to go out. He took up his hat and said only the one word, “Come.” The place where the agent conducted his clerk was the wine-shop in the Rue de Berry, where he had made inquiries respecting Madame d’Argeles the evening before; and on arriving there, he generously offered him a breakfast. Before entering, however, he pointed out Madame d’Argeles’s pretty house on the opposite side of the street, and said to him: “The woman whom you are to follow, and whose son you are to discover, will emerge from that house.”
At that moment, after a night passed in meditating upon his mother’s prophetic warnings, Chupin was again beset by the same scruples which had so greatly disturbed him on the previous evening. However, they soon vanished when he heard the wine-vendor, in reply to M. Fortunat’s skilful questions, begin to relate all he knew concerning Madame Lia d’Argeles, and the scandalous doings at her house. The seeker after lost heirs and his clerk were served at a little table near the door; and while they partook of the classical beef-steak and; potatoes--M. Fortunat eating daintily, and Chupin bolting his food with the appetite of a ship-wrecked mariner--they watched the house opposite.
Madame d’Argeles received on Saturdays, and, as Chupin remarked, “there was a regular procession of visitors.”
Standing beside M. Fortunat, and flattered by the attention which such a well-dressed gentleman paid to his chatter, the landlord of the house mentioned the names of all the visitors he knew. And he knew a good number of them, for the coachmen came to his shop for refreshments when their masters were spending the night in play at Madame d’Argeles’s house. So he was able to name the Viscount de Coralth, who dashed up to the door in a two-horse phaeton, as well as Baron Trigault, who came on foot, for exercise, puffing and blowing like a seal. The wine-vendor, moreover, told his customers that Madame d’Argeles never went out before half-past two or three o’clock, and then always in a carriage--a piece of information which must have troubled Chupin; for, as soon as the landlord had left them to serve some other customers, he leant forward and said to M. Fortunat: “Did you hear that? How is it possible to track a person who’s in a carriage?”