His materials were simplicity itself:
his forks, which were always with him, and another's well-filled pocket,
since, sensible of danger, he cared not to risk his neck for a purse
that did not contain so much as would 'sweeten a grawler.' At its
best, his method was always witty--that is the single word which will
characterise it--witty as a piece of Heine's prose, and as dangerous. He
would run over a man's pockets while he spoke with him, returning what
he chose to discard without the lightest breath of suspicion. 'A good
workman,' his contemporaries called him; and they thought it a shame
for him to be idle. Moreover, he did not blunder unconsciously upon his
triumph; he tackled the trade in so fine a spirit of analysis that he
might have been the very Aristotle of his science. 'The keek-cloy,' he
wrote, in his hints to young sportsmen, 'is easily picked. If the notes
are in the long fold just tip them the forks; but if there is a purse
or open money in the case, you must link it.' The breast-pocket, on the
other hand, is a severer test. 'Picking the suck is sometimes a kittle
job,' again the philosopher speaks. 'If the coat is buttoned it must be
opened by slipping past. Then bring the lil down between the flap of the
coat and the body, keeping your spare arm across your man's breast, and
so slip it to a comrade; then abuse the fellow for jostling you.'
Not only did he master the tradition of thievery; he vaunted his
originality with the familiar complacence of the scoundrel.
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