acquired an array of confidence men and hotel beats and queer shovers
and bank sneaks and wire tappers and drum snuffers. He made a mental
record of dips and yeggs and till-tappers and keister-crackers, of
panhandlers and dummy chuckers, of sun gazers and schlaum workers. He
slowly became acquainted with their routes and their rendezvous, their
tricks and ways and records. But, what was more important, he also
grew into an acquaintanceship with ward politics, with the nameless
Power above him and its enigmatic traditions. He got to know the
Tammany heelers, the men with "pull," the lads who were to be "pounded"
and the lads who were to be let alone, the men in touch with the
"Senator," and the gangs with the fall money always at hand.

Blake, in those days, was a good "mixer." He was not an "office" man,
and was never dubbed high-brow. He was not above his work; no one
accused him of being too refined for his calling. Through a mind such
as his the Law could best view the criminal, just as a solar eclipse is
best viewed through smoked glass.

He could hobnob with bartenders and red-lighters, pass unnoticed
through a slum, join casually in a stuss game, or loaf unmarked about a
street corner. He was fond of pool and billiards, and many were the
unconsidered trifles he picked up with a cue in his hand. His face,
even in those early days, was heavy and inoffensive. Commonplace
seemed to be the word that fitted him. He could always mix with and
become one of the crowd. He would have laughed at any such foolish
phrase as "protective coloration." Yet seldom, he knew, men turned
back to look at him a second time. Small-eyed, beefy and well-fed, he
could have passed, under his slightly tilted black boulder, as a truck
driver with a day off.