e is the man
who wears an overcoat, the lining of the pocket of which he has
previously removed, so that he can pass his hand right through while
apparently only standing still looking on, with his hands quietly in his
pocket, possibly with one hand openly touching something, whilst the
other is earning his dinner.

[Illustration: '_Earning his Dinner._']

An amusing incident was once the experience of a London bookseller.
While sitting behind his counter inside the shop, he was amazed one day
at seeing a man running at a tremendous rate, and, momentarily
slackening his speed to seize a book off the stall, he had disappeared
before the astounded bookseller was able to get to the door. And it is
remarkable that, though many people were about, no one seems to have
noticed the thief take the book, though they saw him running. Another
favourite device is to carry a newspaper in the hand, and when no one is
looking deposit the paper on a carefully-selected book within the folds;
or having an overcoat carried on the arm to quickly hide something
under cover of it. This latter method requires, of course, a
well-to-do-looking man, and obviously is chiefly confined to the
stealers of the higher class of valuable books. It also requires, like
every well-managed business, a certain amount of capital, for it is
absolutely necessary--in order to lull suspicion--that small purchases
should be made from time to time in the hunting-ground that has been
chosen for the season.

[Illustration: _The King's Library, British Museum._]

Then there is the mean man who, having money, is yet lacking in the will
to spend it. Such individuals in these days of disguising bad deeds
under grand names are euphemistically designated kleptomaniacs. Most
London booksellers have had experience of this class. It is a known fact
that a literary man whose name is familiar to many readers was expelled
from the reading-room of the British Museum for this sort of conduct,
stealing small trifling things that could easily have been bought, and
mutilating other books by cutting out passages which he was too lazy to
transcribe, and too mean, although a well-to-do man, to employ an
amanuensis.

'Steal?' quoth ancient Pistol. 'Foh! a fico for the phrase. Convey the
wise it call.' Had Pistol lived in these days he would have said,
'Kleptomania the wise it call.' Some years ago there resided in the
West End of London a Belgian gentleman well known in literary cir