The more professional headquarters were in an innocent-looking barber shop on Chrystie Street. In the back there was a pool parlor. The lamps were so shaded that the table was brilliantly illumined and the rest of the room was black. If you walked in from the brightly lighted shop in front, you could not tell how many people were there, nor how many pistols were pointed at you. From the toilet-room in the back there was an inconspicuous door into the alley, which, besides its strategic advantages, led to the back door of Pincus Kahan's pawnshop. Much stolen goods followed this route. A sort of Robin Hood romance has been thrown around the notorious gang leaders of Lower New York. As usual, the reality back of the romance is a very sorry thing. Jake, for instance, was not an admirably clever, nor strong-willed, nor fearless specimen of the genus homo. To be sure he excelled many of his stunted, defective, and "cocaine-doped" retainers in these qualities, but above all he owed his position to a calculating, patient prudence. Discretion is certainly the better part of valor in knavery, and while most crooks are daredevils, Jake was discreet. Since his first detention in the House of Refuge, Jake had managed to keep out of jail. On his release he had organized a "mob" of pickpockets. Most of its members were boys he had met in that worthy institution. Neither the House of Refuge nor any of the other "reformatories" are to be blamed for the crimes of those who have passed through them. Many of their inmates are taught honorable trades, and some follow them after release. Nearly half of the juvenile pickpockets who gathered about Jake had never been arrested--and they were every bit as bad as those who had been in the House of Refuge. Owing to their leader's discretion, this little "mob," which had affiliated with the dominant East Side Gang, enjoyed an almost unbroken run of prosperity. But when he had turned eighteen, Jake retired from the active practice of his profession. There was as much money and more security in women. Nature had endowed him with the necessary external charms. He enjoyed cleanliness, he was good looking, and above all he had a soft, persuasive voice. His covetousness, joined with a natural ability at organization, was always pushing him into new enterprises. He gathered together the wreck of the notorious Beggars' Trust. He joined "The Independent Benevolent Society," and cornered the business of supplying girls to their "brass check" houses. One after another, he gained control of the gang's most lucrative ventures. Almost any other man of the under world would have made a play for acknowledged leadership long before Jake did. He was modest, or, as his enemies said, a coward. He waited until sudden death or imprisonment had removed his principal rivals--until the leadership was practically forced upon him.