to accept less desirable retainers involving no such
requirements, or go to the wall. The collection of photographs is almost
priceless and the clippings, letters, and memoranda in the filing cases
only secondarily so. Very few of the "operators" pretend to anything but
common-sense, with perhaps some special knowledge of the men they
are after. They are not clairvoyants or mystery men, but they will
tirelessly follow a crook until they get him. They are the regular
troops who take their orders without question. The real "detective" is
the "boss" who directs them.

The reader can easily see that in all cases where a crime, such as
forgery, is concerned, once the identity of the criminal is ascertained,
half the work (or more than half) is done. The agencies know the face
and record of practically every man who ever flew a bit of bad paper in
the United States, in England, or on the Continent. If an old hand gets
out of prison his movements are watched until it is obvious that he does
not intend to resort to his old tricks. After the criminal is known or
"located," the "trailing" begins and his "connections" are carefully
studied. This may or may not require what might be called real detective
work; that is to say, work requiring superior power of deducing
conclusions from first-hand information, coupled with unusual skill
in acting upon them. Mere trailing is often simple, yet sometimes
very difficult. A great deal depends on the operator's own peculiar
information as to his man's habits, haunts, and associates. It is very
hard to say in most cases just where mere knowledge ends and detective
work proper begins. As for disguises, they are almost unknown, except
such as are necessary to enable an operator to join a gang where his
quarry may be working and "rope" him into a confession.

Detective agencies of the first-class are engaged principally in
clean-cut criminal work, such as guarding banks from forgers and
"yeggmen"--an original and dangerous variety of burglar peculiar to the
United States and Canada. In other words, they have large associations
of clients who need more protection than the regular police can give
them, and whose interest it is that the criminal shall not only be
driven out of town, but run down (wherever he may be), captured, and put
out of the way for as long a time as possible.

The work done for private individuals is no less important and
effective, but it is secondary to the other. The gre