them, keeping as careful track of them from city to city as he did of
the "big" criminals themselves. They got into the habit of going to
him for their special stories. He always exacted secrecy, pretended
reluctance, yet parceled out to one reporter and another those dicta to
which his name could be most appropriately attached. He even
surrendered a clue or two as to how his own activities and triumphs
might be worked into a given story. When he perceived that those
worldly wise young men of the press saw through the dodge, he became
more adept, more adroit, more delicate in method. But the end was the
same.

It was about this time that he invested in his first scrap-book. Into
this secret granary went every seed of his printed personal history.
Then came the higher records of the magazines, the illustrated articles
written about "Blake, the Hamard of America," as one of them expressed
it, and "Never-Fail Blake," as another put it. He was very proud of
those magazine articles, he even made ponderous and painstaking efforts
for their repetition, at considerable loss of dignity. Yet he adopted
the pose of disclaiming responsibility, of disliking such things, of
being ready to oppose them if some effective method could only be
thought out. He even hinted to those about him at Headquarters that
this seeming garrulity was serving a good end, claiming it to be
harmless pother to "cover" more immediate trails on which he pretended
to be engaged.

But the scrap-books grew in number and size. It became a task to keep
up with his clippings. He developed into a personage, as much a
personage as a grand-opera prima donna on tour. His successes were
talked over in clubs. His name came to be known to the men in the
street. His "camera eye" was now and then mentioned by the scientists.