THUBWAY THAM REFORMS,
by Johnston McCulleyINTRODUCTION
Tubway Tham, a charming everyman who happens to work as a pickpocket on the New York subways, was one of Johnston McCulley’s favorite characters—he wrote more than 100 stories about the lisping thief over a 40-year period. The character was so popular in Detective Story Magazine that, as a publicity stunt, Christopher Booth (author of the Mr. Clackworthy stories) and Johnston McCulley each penned crossover stories in which his character got the better of the other.
Such luminaries as Harlan Ellison were fans of the character. (Harlan once told me that he had collected all the stories and had hoped to edit a book of them, but was unable to find a publisher at the time.) Wildside Press had at that point already published a pair of suc
