ckly
over, the chair was quietly replaced, the panel-door closed, and the
thief appeared with a roll of bills in his hand. The whole thing was
done in from twenty to twenty-five seconds. Immediately after the
closing of the door the man went outside, and, knocking on the
passage-door of the bedroom, said in a loud whisper.

"Jenny, here's Joe; hurry up."

"My God!" exclaimed the girl, jumping up, "you must get away as fast as
you can. That's my lover. He's dreadful jealous, and would shoot you as
soon as look at you."

It is needless to say that the victim required no urging. He jumped into
his clothes as fast as possible, only too glad to get out of the way
before the appearance of the terrible imaginary lover, and apparently
without the slightest notion that he had been robbed.

The victims of these thefts have really no redress. It is so hard to
find the guilty woman afterwards, or even to locate the house, for
unless the pleasure hunter suspects some trap he pays no particular
attention to the kind of house, its situation, or its number. In the
case of a stranger he never seeks the thieves again, but "pockets his
loss." If an elderly man, he does likewise. But if he be really an
obstinate man, determined upon catching the thieves and prosecuting
them, he will invariably be approached and his money and valuables will
be returned to him upon condition that he withdraws his complaint.
Convictions are very rarely obtained in any case from the difficulty of
identifying the parties.

Many of these women never see a penny of the plundered money, the man,
in most cases, retaining the whole of the loot. It sometimes happens
that a victim discovers that he has been robbed before he leaves, and
makes what is called in the vernacular a "kick"; if so, it also
sometimes happens that he is unmercifully beaten by the lover and his
pals, but it has occurred that when "the kicker" was a man about town,
that he has gotten away with his assailant in a manner calculated to
make the heart of a Sullivan beat with pleasure.

There is quite a different feature of this panel-game, but which more
properly belongs to black-mail, in which, through the peep-holes in the
doors, the face of the man or woman in the adjoining room is studied,
waited for on the outside, followed to his or her home, and in a few
days threatened with exposure, if the sum demanded is not forthcoming.

Couples have been known to ply the panel-game very successful