8vo. Half-title, numerous woodcut vignettes in the text. (Uneven toning and spotting to endpapers.) Original pictorial green cloth stamped and lettered in gilt, top edge gilt. Provenance: Sir John Watson (armorial bookplate); Florence and Edward Kaye (gilt morocco bookplate).

FIRST EDITION. "The 'illustrious' Colonel Clay has been shamefully neglected. The Adam of yeggmen preceded the infinitely celebrated Raffles by two years, long enough to entitle the Colonel to top honors as the first great short-story thief on the criminal literary scene. The rare first edition of his fancy filching and fleecing shows an illustration in gold-leaf, on the front cover, of a Pied Piper followed not by children but by winged money-bags" (Queen's Quorum 21).