TORONTO

Watch. A man, in a corner deli, is about to commit a crime.

He requests cigarettes but offers no money.

Instead he reaches across the counter. Then he snatches the loot — two packs of Players — and exits.

Out he goes through the front door: Past me, past the other waiting customers, a diminutive pursuer hot on his tail.

What happens next will astound you. First some context.

Last Tuesday around 5 p.m., this piece of petty thievery played out at Yoo’s Deli and Variety Store, 250 King St. E.

In the bustle of a city the size of Toronto it might easily have been missed because it was over faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.

Still, it is worth retelling. Not so much for what it was but what it represents. An act of sheer bravery.

This is how it finished.

Danett Yoo, 28, all of 5-feet even and 95 pounds, cleared the shop counter and gave chase to the hulking 5-foot-11 man as he pushed out into the street.

She didn’t hesitate when she caught him. This reed-thin punisher hurled the thief clean away from his bike and took a swing at him. Not the straight right hand of a George Chuvalo. Rather the desperate, agricultural shot of a person acting without thinking.

The criminal ducked.

Then the two faced off on the sidewalk. They held a wheel of the bike each and tugged to see who would give in first.

Well, here’s a clue, Sherlock. It wasn’t Danett.

The thief started screaming like a little girl. We all started yelling back as a crowd gathered outside the nearby Pita Land and moved towards the pair, everyone scrambling for their cellphones.

“Call the cops,” somebody yelled. “Take a picture. Phone for help,” another responded.

All the time King St. rumbled on, afternoon commuters barely noticing the piece of street theatre being played out in front of them.

Push and pull, push and pull, push and pull. The bike was both the contest and the only thing separating the combatants.

Terrified, the bumbling petty criminal then did what you would expect.

He dropped his end and ran away. Yes, he bolted, scarpered, decamped, fled, made off, call it what you will, with two packs of cigarettes but no bicycle, much less his dignity.

Why did she do it?

“This is my mum and dad’s shop. They have worked so hard since they came here from South Korea and nobody can do that to us,” Danett told me.

Yes, but for two packs of Players? Really?

“Stealing is wrong … he will have to pay. Anyway, I have his bike now and he is too scared to come back. I can sell it and make some profit.”

We are all familiar with the tantalizing game of wondering what we would do when confronted with an extreme moment. How would we react in warfare, under torture, imprisoned, blinded, threatened with physical violence.

Would we be like the bespectacled conscript who wins the VC or would we be reduced to a puny fit of carpet-biting cowardice?

Maybe we would sleep though it all like Stella. She is the family guard dog that didn’t flinch as her mistress battled her unlikely foe. The boxer-bullmastiff-cross instead snoozed and dreamed of whatever it is that sustains dogs through the deepening afternoon hours of fall.

Danett Yoo has had her testing moment.

Const. Wendy Drummond from the Toronto Police Service has her own view. She cautions the public to just let the criminal escape.

“The TPS never recommends a person put themselves at risk. Property can be replaced, a person’s life is more valuable than any property,” she said.

Drummond revealed that while the attack on Yoo’s Deli was disturbing it is part of a downward trend.

“There has been a 15.9% decrease in the number of reported robberies year-to-date compared to 2012. We currently stand at 2,915 reported robberies throughout Toronto, compared to 3,466 in 2012,” she said.

Oh, one last thing.

There’s still time to come and get your bike back, scumbag, before it goes on Kijiji.

If you’re game.