from my very cradle; and," added he, after
a pause, "I am thankful to say that I have
not been altogether unsuccessful in my
vocation."

I was startled for an instant by the man's
seriousness, and instinctively—although he
was at the other end of the compartment—
looked for his wicked hands. They were
lying in his lap before him, neatly gloved, one
of them still holding the paper.

"Ah," he said, smiling, and at once
comprehending my glance, "these are nothing.
They are merely my whited walls, my
outside respectabilities, my ostentatious charities,
my prayers before my business proceedings.
We have our little hypocrisies, like the
commercial world. See here," he rose up to his
full height, and the two lemon-coloured
aristocratic hands fell on the floor with a third.
"Here are my natural digits," he continued,
producing another set of digits ungloved, and
not particularly clean; " nobody can suspect
a man of picking pockets who always keeps
his hands before him, and reads the City
Article in the Times."

"You were reading the advertisement
sheet," I said, intensely interested, but still
inclined for contradiction.

"Yes, sir," he retorted, "because I saw
that pretence of that kind to a person of your
intelligence would be futile. I always
change my tactics with my company."

I began to feel very tenderly for this poor
fellow, whom doubtless circumstances had
driven to his present dreadful calling, but
whose mental endowments had evidently
fitted for far better things.

"But why," I urged, "not have picked my
pocket, my good young man?"

"Because, sir," he answered, "I am now
bent on pleasure, and not on business, unless
something very enticing should come in my
way; open and unreserved conversation, too,
such as I felt I could indulge in with you, is
to one in my situation " (the poor fellow
sighed) " too rare a happiness to be easily
forgone; besides," he added, reassuming his
natural tone, "you don't carry your bank-notes
in your pocket at all."

I felt myself glowing all over as red as
beetroot or boiled lobster, but I managed to
articulate as calmly as I could, "Bank-notes!
ah, that's a good joke. I very seldom have
anything of that kind to carry, I'm sorry to
say."

"Yes, but when you have?" interrogated
the other, slily.

"Well, sir, when I have, what then?" I
retorted, with assumed carelessness.

"Why, what a very strange place,"
remarked he, very slowly and impressively;
"your neckcloth seems to be for keeping
them safe!"

"How the devil did you come to know
that?" I cried, in astonishment.

"What does it signify? What can be the
value of thieves' logic?" he answered,
derisively. "I am sure you can have no ambition
to be informed."

"Pray tell," I entreated, "pray tell; I
humbly apologise;" I had very nearly robbed
myself of a most interesting conversation
through my own ill-humour. "It is very true
that I have a number of Scotch notes in the
place you mention, which my purse would
not hold; but what on earth made you
discover it?"

"It was very simple reasoning," he replied,
"and scarcely needs explanation; stiffeners
are seldom worn now, and yet your
neckerchief had something in it; you were anxious
about that something, and put your fingers
to it involuntarily a dozen times; it was not
through solicitude for your neat appearance,
for you never touched the bow of it; nor did
the thing misfit you, or tickle your neck,
because instead of scratching, you simply
tapped it, as a man taps his fob to be assured
—there, you're doing it now—of the safety of
his watch."

"What a fool I am!" I exclaimed, testily.

"Nay," said he, "it would be more civil to
compliment me upon my powers of observation."

"I do compliment you,"I replied, with
candour. "I think you an exceedingly clever
fellow."

"Well," said he, "it is not for me to speak
about that; I know a thing or two doubtless
that may be out of your respectable beat,
and I daresay I could put you up to the time
of day in several matters."

"Put me up to it," I cried, with enthusiasm,
and parting with my last ray of
superciliousness; "I am as ignorant as a peacock,
I feel; do, I entreat you, put me up to it."

Whereupon, I am bound to say that my
companion communicated to me such an
array of interesting facts regarding his calling
as would have shamed a parliamentary blue
book, and beguiled the way for hours with
conversation, or rather monologue, of the
most exciting kind. Lord Byron states that
one of the pleasantest persons he ever met in
his life was a pickpocket, and I hasten to
endorse his lordship's opinion with my own.
I felt all that satisfaction in listening to my
nefarious acquaintance which belongs to an
intercourse with an enemy during a temporary
truce; the delight which a schoolboy
feels in playing at cricket with his pedagogue;
or the pleasure which is experienced when a
bishop happens to join, for once, in the chorus
of one's own comic song. So affable, so
almost friendly, an air pervaded his remarks
that the most perfect sense of security was
engendered within me. I could scarcely
imagine that my agreeable companion could
have ever been in reality concerned in a
fraudulent transaction, and far less in any
deed of violence.

We had just left Preston, and he was
concluding a highly interesting account of how
bad money was circulated in the provinces,