I have already said that lax business methods, as practised at the Ocean Bank in New York City, and the expensive habits of John Taylor, one of the bank’s trusted clerks, were the prime factors in making my plan to loot the vault an assured success. There is no doubt of this, therefore I would call especial attention to that chapter. That I may more deeply impress the fact upon the minds of those I would advise, permit me to mention yet another marked laxness in providing protection for bank funds, and that is the selection of the numbers used on combination locks. Experience taught me to observe the custom of banks, as to the manner in which the combination numbers were used, and I soon found it to be the prevailing rule among cashiers to use figures easily divisible. For example, a train of numbers selected would be four, sixteen, and thirty-two, or twelve, twenty-four, and thirty-six. Such trains should be avoided if first-class protection against robbery is desired. I will give a sufficient reason for thus advising my friends. In a certain bank robbery, the identity of which I purpose not to disclose at present, I was reasonably sure that I possessed the first number of the train used on the vault-door lock. The number was twelve. I tried it at the first opportunity with twenty-four and thirty-six, and in five minutes was inside the vault. Finding that the numbers easily divisible seemed to be the custom of the bank, I tried four, sixteen, and thirty-two on the inside money chest. The result was not at all astonishing to me, but the officials were undoubtedly panic-stricken, the next day, when they learned that a large amount of ready cash had been carried away. No holes were drilled, and no explosive was used. Therefore I would advise more care in the selection of combination numbers. Do not think it a task to change the combination often. The old Louis Lillie combination locks, where the spindle dial could be unscrewed, and a few other makes of the present day, most of them antiquated, could be successfully manipulated. In fact, these locks were what I termed a “dead walk-over.” I must assert, however, that if it is necessary to work out a properly arranged, first-class, three or four tumbler combination lock, it can be safely said that it is, in nearly every case, a physical impossibility to master such a lock in forty-eight or even seventy-two hours.