He picked brains, not pockets; he committed the greater sin and
ran no risk He helped himself to the admirable inventions of Captain
Smith without apology or acknowledgment, and, as though to lighten the
dead-weight of his sin, he never skipped an opportunity of maligning his

A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS
victim Again and again in the very act to steal he will declare
vaingloriously that Captain Smith's stories are `barefaced inventions'
But doubt was no check to the habit of plunder, and you knew that at
every reproach, expressed (so to say) in self-defence, he plied the scissors
with the greater energy The most cunning theft is the tag which adorns
the title-page of his book:
Little villains oft submit to fate That great ones may
enjoy the world in state
Thus he quotes from Gay, and you applaud the aptness of the quotation,
until you discover that already it was used by Steele in his appreciation of
the heroic Smith! However, Johnson has his uses, and those to whom the
masterpiece of Captain Alexander is inaccessible will turn with pleasure to
the General History of the lives and adventures of the most Famous
Highwaymen, Murderers, Street-Robbers,