“‘Impertinence!’ Say it!” he answered. “Come, say it! Now, isn’t that what you really mean? Stop a bit, I will help you to set the table. Ah! I am a nice man, am I not?
“For the locks of brown and the golden hair
A sighing lover...
“Oh! I have just seen something so funny——
.... led by chance.”
“What?” asked the widow.
“Father Goriot in the goldsmith’s shop in the Rue Dauphine at half-past eight this morning. They buy old spoons and forks and gold lace there, and Goriot sold a piece of silver plate for a good round sum. It had been twisted out of shape very neatly for a man that’s not used to the trade.”
“Really? You don’t say so?”
“Yes. One of my friends is expatriating himself; I had been to see him off on board the Royal Mail steamer, and was coming back here. I waited after that to see what Father Goriot would do; it is a comical affair. He came back to this quarter of the world, to the Rue des Gres, and went into a money-lender’s house; everybody knows him, Gobseck, a stuck-up rascal, that would make dominoes out of his father’s bones, a Turk, a heathen, an old Jew, a Greek; it would be a difficult matter to rob him, for he puts all his coin into the Bank.”
“Then what was Father Goriot doing there?”
“Doing?” said Vautrin. “Nothing; he was bent on his own undoing. He is a simpleton, stupid enough to ruin himself by running after——”