"Quite impossible."

"No matter, we must look sharp. Vaucheray, take the lamp and let's go
upstairs."

He took Gilbert by the arm and, as he dragged him to the first floor:

"You ass," he said, "is that the way you make inquiries? Wasn't I right
to have my doubts?"

"Look here, governor, I couldn't know that he would change his mind and
come back to dinner."

"One's got to know everything when one has the honour of breaking into
people's houses. You numskull! I'll remember you and Vaucheray... a
nice pair of gossoons!..."

The sight of the furniture on the first floor pacified Lupin and he
started on his inventory with the satisfied air of a collector who has
looked in to treat himself to a few works of art:

"By Jingo! There's not much of it, but what there is is pucka! There's
nothing the matter with this representative of the people in the question
of taste. Four Aubusson chairs... A bureau signed 'Percier-Fontaine,' for
a wager... Two inlays by Gouttieres... A genuine Fragonard and a sham
Nattier which any American millionaire will swallow for the asking: in
short, a fortune... And there are curmudgeons who pretend that there's
nothing but faked stuff left. Dash it all, why don't they do as I do?
They should look about!"