Letter: An artful way of using their hands

Sir: I had a strange experience of a young pickpocket in Florence. A gypsy girl thrust a piece of cardboard at me and while I was expostulating with her, neatly unzipped my waistbag and extracted my folder of credit cards, which she gave back to me.

Presumably they were of no use to her personally and she did not know how to dispose of them, luckily for me.

Yours faithfully,

JOAN M. COX

Scarborough,

North Yorkshire

22 August