Here’s an old story that is still hilarious: Arnold Chrysler was accused of stealing 40,000 coat hangers from hotels across England. Whilst in court, he had some fun with the lawyers:

Counsel: Now, Mr Chrysler – for let us assume that that is your name – you are accused of purloining in excess of 40,000 hotel coat hangers.

Chrysler: I am.

Counsel: Can you explain how this came about?

Chrysler: Yes. I had 40,000 coats which I needed to hang up.

Counsel: Is that true?

Chrysler: No.

Counsel: Then why did you say it?

Chrysler: To attempt to throw you off balance.

He went on to explain that he stole them to furnish the hotel-style closets he makes for his clients:

Chrysler: It isn’t so much the fact that they are stolen that makes them attractive. You have to remember that many top businessmen spend more of their time in hotels than in their own home. They become used to hotel life. They think of hotels as home. Therefore they become used to hotel hangers and think of them as normal, and on the rare occasions when they spend some time at home they can’t stand these fiddly things with hooks which you and I may think of as normal but which the business traveller thinks of as loose-fitting and badly designed. So they come to me and get me to make a hotel-style wardrobe.

Counsel: Are you seriously suggesting that there are people who prefer hotel life to home life?

Chrysler: Certainly. A lot of businessmen would never go home if they had the chance. So when they get home they like to recreate the hotel experience in their own house. Many of my clients have their own mini-bars in their bedrooms. They have TV sets at the end of the bed on a raised shelf, often with an adult sex channel on it. All their bathroom products come in wrappers and are thrown away each day. I have even known people in their own home put out “Do Not Disturb” notices on the door of their own bedroom.

Counsel: Stolen, presumably, from some hapless hotel.

…

Judge: Tell me, Mr Chrysler, do these businessmen of yours also have Gideon Bibles by their bedside at home?

Chrysler: Many of them, sir.

Judge: And where do you get the Gideon Bibles from?

Chrysler: Alas, they, too, have to be taken from hotels.

Judge: Then why are you not also up on a charge of Bible-stealing?

Chrysler: Because the Bibles do not belong to the hotels. They belong to the Gideon Society. And the Gideon Society has decided not to prosecute me, but to forgive me and tell me to go and sin no more.

Judge: And have you sinned no more?

Chrysler: Alas, no.