He wore a cocked hat and a bluish-grey swallow-tailed coat and seemed very much out of breath from ascending the five flights of stairs.

His manners were very affable and his steps sounded as sonorously as that of a money-changer's counter on the march.
Rodolphe was alarmed for a moment, and at the sight of the cocked hat and the coat thought that he had a police officer before him.
But the sight of the tolerably well filled bag made him perceive his mistake.
"Ah! I have it," thought he, "it is something on account of my inheritance, this man comes from the West Indies.

But in that case why is he not black ?" And making a sign to the man, he said, pointing to the bag, "I know all about it.

Put it down there.

Thanks." The man was a messenger of the Bank of France.