Lightening quick, the well trained hand of the child pickpocket plunged into the Red Lady's handbag as she took a drink. His years of self-training had taught him to almost see with his fingertips... There was a woman's makeup compact, a tube of lipstick, some tissues, some kind of cloth wrapped...cylinder? Vial? In the short span of seconds his hand was in her purse he felt no money. Making a split second decision his hand grasped the strange object and withdrew, as quick as it plunged into the bag, back to his knickers pocket. Hopefully the cloth-covered thing would be worth something, otherwise Elias was a bit disappointed in his appraising abilities. 

He glanced at the woman sitting across the table from his mark, avoiding eye contact. It didn't appear she had noticed his little movement, but he couldn't be sure. To be safe, he slipped back through the crowded pub floor, putting other patrons between himself and the two ladies (the whole time slipping his hands into their pockets as well, stealing not-quite an echo's worth of pennies). 

After putting a good bit of distance between himself and the Red Woman and her friend, Elias casually scanned the room again. There was a large foreign-looking woman. She wouldn't have enough real money to be worth robbing. He scanned around and saw a disheveled looking sailor woman talking to another lady at another table. That was promising, but neither looked especially affluent. Two young men sat at another table nearby; one a dapper-looking gentleman, the other a well-armed and dangerous looking character. The gentleman would have made a great target for the young pickpocket, but he couldn't risk the wild looking gunslinger catching him in the act. Elias was fast, but not fast enough to outrun bullets. 

Finally, amidst all the crowd, Elias noticed a single scholarly-looking man sitting alone, scratching away on parchment with a quill. That was it. He would be distracted with his writing, and even if he didn't have money on his person, he might have some interesting things written on parchment in his pockets. The right story could feed the boys for a week or two. 

Slipping unnoticed through the crowd once more (inspecting each pocket as he passed) he made his way towards the lone scholar. Similar to the Red Woman, he sneaked around behind his target. He approached, reaching out, his fingers closing in on each other to make his hand as small as possible...