Who knows their lurking-places?
Had it been a townsman or a villager I might perhaps have caught him and obtained redress.' He said this in a manner of soliloquy before he turned to me, and, with reproachful face, exclaimed: 'He stole our bag of lentils and you watched him steal it! You had at hand our good revolver, yet you did not shoot!' 'Why should I shoot a man for such a trifle ?' 'It is not the dimensions or the value of the object stolen that your Honour ought to have considered, but the crime! The man who steals a bag of lentils thus deliberately is a wicked man, and when a man is wicked he deserves to die; and he expects it.' I told him that the gipsy was quite welcome to the lentils, but he would not entertain that point of view.

After trying vainly to convince me of my failure to perform a social duty, he went out to the establishment of a coffee-seller across the street, who kept his cups and brazier in the hollow trunk of the old ilex tree, and set stools for his customers beneath its shade, encroaching on the public street.
Thither I followed after a few minutes, and found him telling everybody of the theft.

Those idlers all agreed with him that it was right to shoot a thief.
'All for a bag of lentils!' I retorted loftily.

'God knows I do not grudge as much to any man.' At that there rose a general cry of 'God forbid!' while one explained: 'It were a sin to refuse such a thing to a poor man in need who came and begged for it in Allah's name.

But men who take by stealth or force are different.