Round the edge of my paper I watched the old gentleman, whose eyes were now fixed obliquely upon the woman on his left. I distinctly saw his eyes travel down from the woman's face to her black cloth jacket, and stop at the outside pocket, from which her omnibus ticket was peeping. The pocket was on a level with, and almost touching his elbow, and his hand, his left hand, which was resting upon his knee, began slowly to travel towards the pocket of the tired-looking woman.
"APPARENTLY MAKING SKETCHES OF THE PASSENGERS."
The baby was kicking, grasping at the stuffy air with crinkled fingers, and threatened to give voice, and the tired-looking woman, rocking more anxiously than before, looked timidly from one neighbour to another as though in apology for the wrath to come.
At that moment my glance was attracted to a point above the old gentleman's head, where I met the eyes of the conductor, pressed close against the window-pane. A little higher was the tip of his nose, whitened by the pressure, and above that his stubby red moustache, underneath which a mouth gaped with inquiry. For a moment or two I was fascinated by the inverted face, which seemed to belong to some other-world creature which had tumbled from extra-mundane space and stuck fast upon the window of the Bayswater bus.
The benevolent old gentleman, quite unconscious of the watchful eyes behind his head, was regarding with a bland smile the advertisements on the window behind me. And as my eyes fell again on the spot where I had last seen his hand, I saw that it was not there. There never was a more unskilful performance. For there sat the old gentleman before my eyes, looking calmly over my head, with two fingers inserted into the pocket of the woman who was rocking the baby. As though it knew the wrong that was being done, the baby gave vent to the threatened yell, and the mother, patting it, and rocking it, and speaking to it in unknown tongues, saw nothing and felt nothing else.
Suddenly, as I watched, the benevolent old gentleman dropped his eyes from the advertisements, and mine arrested them as they fell. Never was an old gentleman so vastly perturbed. I almost felt sorry for him; for an aged criminal who has not learned the art of escaping detection and is therefore hopelessly incompetent, is a pathetic sight.
The omnibus stopped with a jerk just as we came within the range of the lamps at the corner, and the old gentleman, so evil were his deeds, seemed to shrink from the light. I was not quite certain of the etiquette with pickpockets. Ought I to leap upon him then and there and to denounce him? That would be melodramatic, I reflected; and I hate a scene; so I only raised myself from my seat, borrowed support from the handrail above my head, and waited upon events.
"TOWARDS THE POCKET OF THE TIRED-LOOKING WOMAN."