The place chosen was a clothier’s at the South Side—a shilling-a-week clubman—whose business premises were the third flat of a land of houses, the fourth of which was the top. There was not the slightest chance of getting in unseen by the door, as one part of the flat was let to a person who was seldom out of the house. The remainder was locked up when not occupied by the clothier and his band of tailors, and most of the windows looked to the back. It happened that the house was a corner one, and after much study and reconnoitering the intending thieves decided upon a mode of entering which I would not have risked for all the webs of cloth that ever were woven. A quiet and very dark Sunday night was chosen for the attempt. The two got up on the roof of the corner house joining that occupied by the clothier, and Jim, who had under his coat a long length of rope wound round his body with which to lower the webs of cloth to his pal, crept down to the edge of the slates, and loosened with his practised hand the zinc roan or rain gutter running along the edge of the slates. This precarious bridge he sloped over the angle to the window of the clothier’s store-room, a distance of only about twelve feet, but with a slope on it that would have made anyone shudder had they been forced to walk that plank against their will. Joe steadied the top end of the frail bridge, and Jim went sliding down and across with his life in his hands. He was _seen_ doing it, and the accidental spectator afterwards assured me that his own hair nearly stood on end as he saw it done. The passage was accomplished swiftly, and in safety, but Jim’s difficulties were only begun. He stood on the window-sill, three storeys from the ground, but tug as he could the window-sash refused to move. Fancying that it might have been fastened inside he removed one pane of glass in a fashion of his own, inserted his arm, and found to his dismay that the window was not bolted in any way, but only paint-fast. To attempt to move it he knew would be folly, and yet he could not go back to the opposite roof. There was only one way out of the fix—to strip off his jacket and the rope he had brought and try to wriggle through that open pane. He removed as many of the points of broken glass as he could with the aid of his jacket, but in doing so let go the end of his rope, which dropped into the green behind, and left him there isolated and helpless. He cursed over the loss, doubtless, but quickly began the wriggling business, and in a few minutes had struggled through—his shirt sleeves and waistcoat, and even his skin, considerably torn and damaged in transit. When he was in, and the whole coast clear, he thought little of the trouble and danger. He passed to the next room, found the window of that more manageable, and coolly proceeded to select his plunder. He did not hurry himself, for he had not the slightest suspicion of having been seen, every window near him being dark.