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. [Illustration] Future Dictates of Fashion 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."