"Now then!" he said.
The chain snapped and broke in two.
"Another, mates: this one's no good."
They put two pairs on him. He approved:
"That's better. You can't be too careful."
Then, counting the detectives, he continued:
"How many of you are there, my friends? Twenty-five? Thirty? That's a lot.... I can't do anything against thirty. Ah, if there had been only fifteen of you!"
He really had a manner about him, the manner of a great actor playing his instinctive, spirited part impertinently and frivolously. Shears watched him as a man watches a fine sight of which he is able to appreciate every beauty and every shade. And he absolutely received the strange impression that the struggle was an equal one between those thirty men on the one hand, backed up by all the formidable machinery of the law, and that single being on the other, fettered and unarmed. The two sides were evenly matched.
"Well, maître," said Lupin, "this is your work. Thanks to you, Lupin is going to rot on the damp straw of the cells. Confess that your conscience is not quite easy and that you feel the pangs of remorse."