years he had lived among them.

Therefore, it would have much surprised any one of those zealous
guardians of the peace could they have taken a peep into that immaculate
medicine case. Upon opening it, the first article to be seen would have
been an elegant set of the latest conceived tools used by the "box
man," as the ingenious safe burglar now denominates himself. Specially
designed and constructed were the implements--the short but powerful
"jimmy," the collection of curiously fashioned keys, the blued drills
and punches of the finest temper--capable of eating their way into
chilled steel as a mouse eats into a cheese, and the clamps that fasten
like a leech to the polished door of a safe and pull out the combination
knob as a dentist extracts a tooth. In a little pouch in the inner side
of the "medicine" case was a four-ounce vial of nitroglycerine, now half
empty. Underneath the tools was a mass of crumpled banknotes and a few
handfuls of gold coin, the money, altogether, amounting to eight hundred
and thirty dollars.

To a very limited circle of friends Doctor James was known as "The Swell
'Greek.'" Half of the mysterious term was a tribute to his cool and
gentlemanlike manners; the other half denoted, in the argot of the
brotherhood, the leader, the planner, the one who, by the power and
prestige of his address and position, secured the information upon which
they based their plans and desperate enterprises.

Of this elect circle the other members were Skitsie Morgan and Gum
Decker, expert "box men," and Leopold Pretzfelder, a jeweller downtown,
who manipulated the "sparklers" and other ornaments collected by the
working trio. All good and loyal men, as loose-tongued as Memnon and as
fickle as the North Star.