It is not, however, always the shopman whose ways are most open to criticism. For, not only in the poorer districts, customers exist whose ideas of integrity are not of the finest. In Somers, Camden, or Kentish Towns, where the trader must, of necessity and from custom, spread out his goods in the street, to catch the eye, on projecting booths, that articles should occasionally be missed is, perhaps, hardly wonderful; and yet, curiously enough, it is rather in the big West End emporiums that shop-lifting is most common. Sales especially are most dangerous in this respect. Managers, notably of big drapery emporiums, say that they expect to lose a certain percentage regularly in this way: it is regarded as part of the business. "Oh, no! we don't prosecute now," a pleasant shop-walker said in answer to my inquiries on the subject: "It is too risky altogether; the thing isn't worth it. And we lost £500, one year, by getting hold of the wrong person ... it's so easy to mistake, in the crowd. No, we just place detectives here and there, where the biggest crushes are ... they are dressed like ordinary customers, and carry parcels; so that no one could discover their business.... Then, if a detective happens to see a suspicious-looking individual, he marks her or him--(it is generally her), and follows, from one counter to another, to see if he is right. He doesn't speak until he is perfectly sure; but, when he is, he just goes up to the person and says politely, 'Please, would you kindly follow me for a moment into the office?' Once in the office, the shop-lifter is made very quietly to disgorge.... It's nearly always a lady--very well connected some of them are, too.... She's never one of our reg'lar customers--sale-folks seem a kind of class by themselves, and we see nothing of them from one sale-day to another. Some of them make hay then, and no mistake.... Why, madam," said the shop-walker, warming to his narrative, "why, I've seen ladies go into that office, quite stout persons, and come out of it so thin, you'd hardly know 'em again.... They just wear cloaks with deep inside pockets all round." "And don't they ever object, or make a commotion in the shop?" I inquired. "No, they go as quiet as lambs mostly ... and other customers don't notice anything.... You see, they know there's no help for 'em, no use for 'em to brazen it out, lined with silks, and laces and stuffs as they are. Afterwards, we just warn 'em kindly, and let 'em go. They rarely do it twice in the same shop." "What sort of things do they generally take?" I asked.