The professional diamond and jewelry thief, however, is not to be confounded with the shop-lifter, for the former employs quite a different _modus operandi_ in capturing his illicit goods. The diamond thief has been known to display the most fertile ingenuity in devising schemes to rob the unwary though generally alert jeweler. An instance is recorded of a thief entering a jewelry store, leaving his "pal" outside to look in through the window, asking to see some diamond rings. While pretending to examine them with severe criticism, and keeping the salesman engaged, he cleverly attached one end of the string, held by his confederate outside, to several of the most valuable, and quietly dropped them at his feet. His "pal" then quietly pulled them along the floor, out through the door, into the street and decamped. A search of the thief who remained behind disclosed nothing and, as proof was thus wanting, he had to be discharged. The female shop-lifter is generally a woman well known to the police, as her picture will, in nearly every case, be found in the Rogues' Gallery at Police Headquarters. Usually, when she discovers that her actions are watched and her movements shadowed, she quietly folds her tent and proceeds to some other city where she is comparatively a stranger, and where, unsuspected, she can ply her nefarious occupation with less risk of detection and capture. She is often either the wife of a gambler, professional burglar, forger or other criminal; or she may be the wife of some reputable mechanic whose income is insufficient to supply her with the furbelows her vanity craves; or, again, she is one of those women who, having a natural aversion to labor, seek to support themselves by petty thefts.