etectives and policemen from New York were present, and their testimony
proved that my three burglars were men of eminence in their profession,
and that which most puzzled the metropolitan detectives was to discover
why these men should have been willing to devote their high talents to
the comparatively insignificant business of breaking into a suburban
dwelling.

The tall man occupied a position of peculiar eminence in criminal
circles. He was what might be called a criminal manager. He would take
contracts for the successful execution of certain crimes,--bank
robberies, for instance,--and while seldom taking part in the actual
work of a burglary or similar operation, he would plan all the details
of the affair, and select and direct his agents with great skill and
judgment. He had never been arrested before, and the detectives were
delighted, believing they would now have an opportunity of tracing to
him a series of very important criminal operations that had taken place
in New York and some other large cities. He was known as Lewis Mandit,
and this was believed to be his real name.

The stout man was a first-class professional burglar and nothing more,
and was in the employ of Mandit. The young man was a decidedly uncommon
personage. He was of a good family, had been educated at one of our
principal colleges, had travelled, and was in every way qualified to
make a figure in society. He had been a newspaper man, and a writer for
leading periodicals, and had shown considerable literary ability; but a
life of honest industry did not suit his tastes, and he had now adopted
knavery as a regular profession.

This man, who was known among his present associates as Sparky, still
showed himself occasionally in newspaper offices, and was generally
supposed to be a correspondent for a Western journal; but his real
business position was that of Mandit's head man.

Sparky was an expert in many branches of crime. He was an excellent
forger, a skilful lock-picker, an ingenious planner of shady projects,
and had given a great deal of earnest study to the subject of the
loopholes of the law. He had a high reputation in criminal circles for
his ability in getting his fellow-rascals out of jail. There was reason
to believe that in the past year no less than nine men, some condemned
to terms of imprisonment, and some held for trial, had escaped by means
of assistance given them by Sparky.

His methods of giving help to jail-birds w