Now we wish to get into the house, but we have no key.

Is it not so ?" I nodded.
"Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and could not still get in.

And think there was to you no conscience of the housebreaker, what would you do ?" "I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work to pick the lock for me." "And your police, they would interfere, would they not ?" "Oh no! Not if they knew the man was properly employed." "Then," he looked at me as keenly as he spoke, "all that is in doubt is the conscience of the employer, and the belief of your policemen as to whether or not that employer has a good conscience or a bad one.
Your police must indeed be zealous men and clever, oh so clever, in reading the heart, that they trouble themselves in such matter.

No, no, my friend Jonathan, you go take the lock off a hundred empty houses in this your London, or of any city in the world, and if you do it as such things are rightly done, and at the time such things are rightly done, no one will interfere.

I have read of a gentleman who owned a so fine house in London, and when he went for months of summer to Switzerland and lock up his house, some burglar come and broke window at back and got in.