The Sock Thief of Paris
He hangs by his fingertips, the sock thief who has been making headlines and causing gossip in the seventeenth district — called an arrondissement — of Paris. It is none other than the notorious, ruthless bandit seen nightly scaling the façade of the Musee des Soxes Nationale. Tres simple — he is easy to catch. He hangs here now but the marble is too hard and cold. His chubby-cheeked face gleams skyward as he grasps, still hoping to pursue his dastardly cause.
The Parisian night air is unseasonably warm, so warm that the gendarme takes off his flannel.
Now the alarm blares, NEE ner NEE ner, and the gendarme yells, “Hey, you! Get out of that sock drawer! Don’t you know that’s illegal?”
The thief’s eyes look up with devilish glee, and now the sirens change to an equally European whoop! whoop! whoop!
The sock thief’s fingers are gently peeled from the balcony’s iron railing, and he plummets, accompanied by the happy screech of descent all the way. Landing on his feet, he dashes away.
“He’s getting away!” the gendarme cries. “Stop! Thief! Hey, get your own socks, Mister!”
Sounds of invigorating thrill ring out on les rues de Paris, trailing behind the thief (in the drama, he has yet to take a name; his only name is “Sock Thief”), and a terribly glad grunt of collision sounds as…
