Prowler

Someone who goes around looking for prey or plunder. A pilferer.

“At this moment I suddenly noticed that the audience was gazing in our directon with a good deal of interest, and I saw that the bearded chappie was pointing at us.

‘Yes, look at them! Drink them in!’ he was yelling, his voice rising above the perpetual-motion fellow’s and beating the missionary service all to nothing. ‘There you see two typical members of the class which has down-trodden the poor for centuries. Idlers! Non-producers! Look at the tall thin one with the face like a motor-mascot. Has he ever done an honest day’s work in his life? No! A prowler, a trifler, and a blood-sucker! And I bet he still owes his tailor for those trousers!’ He seemed to me to be verging on the personal, and I didn’t think a lot of it. Old Bittlesham, on the other hand, was pleased and amused. ‘A great gift of expression these fellows have,’ he chuckled. ‘Very trenchant.’

‘And the fat one!’ proceeded the chappie. ‘Don’t miss him. Do you know who that is? That’s Lord Bittlesham! One of the worst. What has he ever done except eat four square meals a day? His god is his belly, and he sacrifices burnt-offerings to it. If you opened that man now you would find enough lunch to support ten working-class families for a week.’ ‘You know, that’s rather well put,’ I said, but the old boy didn’t seem to see it. He had turned a brightish magenta and was bubbling like a kettle on the boil.”

P. G. Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves (1923).