queer. So he made up his mind as the best way of working it was to
carry it on in a closed cab, and I don't know that he wasn't right.
He was known to the police however, and that was how they spotted
him. Drat that van! It was as near as a touch to my off-wheel.

"Bless you, if I was to tell you all the thieves and burglars, and
even murderers, as have been in my growler one time or another, you'd
think I'd given the whole Newgate Calendar a lift, though to be sure
this young chap as I spoke of was the only one as ever reg'lar set up
in business there. There was one though as I reckon to be worse than
all the others put together, if he was what I think him to be. It's
often laid heavy on my mind that I didn't have that chap collared
before it was too late, for I might have saved some mischief. It was
about ten years ago--I never was a good hand for dates--that I
picked up a stout-built sailor-sort of fellow, with a reddish
moustache, who wanted to be taken down to the docks. After this chap
as I told you of had taken such liberties with the premises I'd had a
little bit of a glass slit let in in front here--the same that your
little boy's flattening his nose against at this moment--so as I
could prevent any such games in the future, and have an idea,
whenever I wished, of what was going on inside. Well, something or
another about this sailor fellow made me suspicious of him, and I
took a look at what he was after. He was sitting on the seat, sir,
with a big lump o' coal in his lap, and was a looking at it most
attentive. Now this seemed to me rather a rum start, so I kept on
watching of him, for as you'll see, my window's not a very large one,
and it's easier to see through it than to be seen. Well, he pulls a
spring or something, and out jumps one of the sides of this bit of
coal, and then I saw it was really a hollow box, painted, you see,
and made rough so as to look like the other. I couldn't make head or