work, yet on the whole the Rogues' Gallery serves a useful end when a criminal operation does come up and looks well for exhibition purposes when visiting police or detective officials call. Even though criminal work is but an insignificant percentage of its business, it is but just and fair that a detective agency should at least have the semblance of a thief-catching institution; and what will lend a truer color to this fiction than a Rogues' Gallery?
The operating division is the most interesting department of the office, for it is composed wholly of detectives, or operatives.
The government of this department, and the military discipline which prevails therein at all times, as well as the secret manner of recruiting the force, are illustrative of a thoroughness and attention to detail on the part of the Agency which can scarcely be paralleled in any other business institution.
There are three kinds of operatives; namely, special, general and secret.
It frequently happens that the Agency secures a small case where a detective is required to do shadow work or make an investigation, and there is no idle operative available to take up the work. The Agency, in such an emergency, hires a man for this particular operation only, and when the work is concluded this special operative's services are at once dispensed with.
The general operative is selected with the greatest care. He must be an all-round able man, bright, intelligent, and capable of assuming any role, or impersonating any kind of character. He must be a man who can be relied upon to do the right thing, even in the absence of instructions from the executive department, and who will at all times act in a cool, discreet and level-headed manner.
Good general operatives are highly prized by the Agency, and when they succeed in securing one, they do their very best to retain him in their