did not stop to talk, but went at once to work as if their own lives depended on the result, instead of the life of the mysterious occupant of the vault. In less than four minutes they had a hole, somewhat smaller than the business end of a collar-button, knocked into the panel of the vault.

Then Pierre and Baptiste paused to wipe the sweat from their brows. The man inside breathed.

It was now that the pair began to muse on the dénouement. Could this be a member of the firm or an employé? This hypothesis jeopardized the success of the night's adventure, unless, when they had permitted the prisoner to emerge, they bound and gagged him into silence.

On the other hand, this course would have an ugly look. If he resisted it might mean murder in the end; whereas, if they did not let him out at all, they would stand no chance of profiting by the pecuniary contents of the safe. Besides, as the man could scarcely live thus until morning, they would be responsible for his taking off. Thus reasoned Pierre and Baptiste.

"BOTH MEN GREW PALE AS DEATH."

These were not highly comforting reflections, but there was still another and a better in reserve. What if, after all, the man were himself a felon? Might he not be a companion crib-cracker? In that case they would merely have to divide the spoils.

"Hey, in dere," cried Pierre, suddenly struck with an idea. "What is de combination hof de safe?"

"Fifteen—three—seventy-three!" came back in sepulchral tones.

It was evidently growing harder and harder to draw breath through the tiny aperture.

Thus it transpired that at the expiration of fifteen seconds the lock of the vault gave back the same resonant click it had rendered eight minutes previously. Thanks to the timely advent of Pierre and Baptiste it opened as lightly, as airily, and as decisively as it had closed 480 seconds before on the unhappy accountant.

The head book-keeper gasped once or twice, but without any assistance stepped out into the free air. He was very pale and his dress was much rent and disordered when his feet touched the floor. But this pallor quickly made way for a red flush at perceiving the two burglars, with the implements of their profession strewn around them.

Meanwhile Pierre and Baptiste themselves stood transfixed by the sheer novelty of the situation.

Without any kind of speech or warning, or without making any attempt at bravado, the book-keeper walked deliberately to his desk and rang an electric call for the police. Simultaneously it seemed, for so rapid and quiet was the action, he opened a drawer, took out a small revolver, and covered both burglars with a fatal precision. As he did so he uttered these remarkable words:—

"Gentlemen, I would, indeed, be the basest of men if I did not feel profoundly grateful for the service you have just rendered me. I shall always regard you as any right-minded man should regard those who have saved his life with imminent peril to themselves or, which is just the same, to their liberty. Any demand in reason you make of me I shall make an effort to perform—but my duty to my employers I regard as paramount. I have accumulated a little money, and with it I propose to engage the best counsel in your defence, which is certainly marked by mitigating circumstances. If, on the other hand, you are convicted——"

Here the officers of justice entered, having broken open the door with a crash.

By W. Cade Gall.

An elderly gentleman of our acquaintance, whose reading has been rather desultory than profound, and tending rather to the quaint and speculative, was astonished recently at coming across a volume in his library of whose very existence he had been completely unaware. This volume was oblong in shape, was bound in mauve morocco, and was called "Past Dictates of Fashion; by Cromwell Q. Snyder, Vestamentorum Doctor."

Glancing his eye downwards past a somewhat flippant sub-title, the elderly gentleman came, with intense amazement, to understand that the date of this singular performance was 1993. Other persons at a similar juncture would have pinched themselves to see if they were awake, or have tossed the book into the street as an uncanny thing. But our elderly gentleman being of an inquisitive and acquisitive turn of mind, despite his quaintness, recognised the fact that if he was not of the twentieth century the volume obviously was; seized pen and paper, and began to make notes with the speed of lightning. Being also something of a draughtsman he was able to embellish his notes with sketches from the engravings with which "Past Dictates of Fashion" was copiously furnished. These sketches appear with the present article.

Fashion in dress, according to the twentieth century author, notwithstanding its apparent caprice, has always been governed by immutable laws. But these laws were not recognised in the benighted epoch in which we happen to live at present. On the contrary, Fashion is thought a whim, a sort of shuttlecock for the weak-minded of both sexes to make rise and fall, bound and rebound with the battledore called—social influence. But it will interest a great many people to learn that Fashion assumed the dignity of a science in 1940. Ten years later it was taken up by the University of Dublin. By the science as taught by the various Universities later on were explained those points in the history, manners, and literature of our own ancestors which were formerly obscure and, in fact, unknown. They were also, by certain strict rules, enabled to foretell the attire of posterity. Here is a curious passage from the introductory chapter to the book:—

"Cigars went out of fashion twenty years ago. Men and women consumed so much tobacco that their healths were endangered. The laws of Nature were powerless to cope with the evil. Not so the laws of Fashion, which at once abated it. It will, however, return in thirty-one years. In 1790 Nature commanded men to bathe. They laughed at Nature. In 1810 Fashion did the same thing. Men complied, and daily cold baths became established. In 1900 it was pushed to extremes. The ultra-sect cut holes in the ice and plunged into the water. The fashion changed. For forty years only cads bathed."

The following table is also interesting, and should be borne in mind in considering the accompanying cuts. It professes to exhibit the sartorial characteristics of an epoch:—

Table of Waves.