"Well," said the burglar, and he was certainly moved by her remarks, "I see you're in a hole; I've got a pal--I'll fetch him along, and if he thinks they'd fetch anything above their skins, I don't mind doin' you a kindness." Then he went, and Cyril and Robert sent the girls to bed and sat up to wait for his return. It soon seemed absurd to await him in a state of wakefulness, but his stealthy tap on the window awoke them readily enough when he returned. And he did return, with the pal and the barrow and the sacks. The pal approved of the cats, now dormant in Persian repletion, and they were bundled into the sacks and taken away on the barrow, mewing indeed, but with mews too sleepy to attract public attention. [Illustration: "THEY WERE BUNDLED INTO THE SACKS."] "I'm a fence, that's what I am," said the burglar, gloomily; "I never thought I'd come down to this and all acause er my kind 'art." Cyril knew that a fence is a receiver of stolen goods, and he replied, briskly:-- "I give you my word the cats aren't stolen. What do you make the time?" "I ain't got the time on me," said the pal; "but it was just about chucking-out time as I come by the Bull and Gate. I shouldn't wonder if it was nigh upon one now." When the cats had been removed and the boys and the burglar had parted with warm expressions of friendship there remained only the cow. "She must stay all night," said Robert. "Cook'll have a fit when she sees her." "All night?" said Cyril. "Why, it's to-morrow morning if it's one. We can have another wish!" So the carpet was urged, in a hastily-written note, to remove the cow to wherever she belonged and to return to its proper place on the nursery floor. And the cow could not be got to move on to the carpet. So Robert got the clothes-line out of the back kitchen and tied one end very firmly to the cow's horns and the other end to a bunched-up corner of the carpet, and said, "Fire away!" And carpet and cow vanished together, and the boys went to bed tired out, and only too thankful that the evening at last was over. Next morning the carpet lay calmly in its place, but one corner was very badly torn. It was the corner that the cow had been tied on to. _What Is a Good Advertisement?_ What is a good advertisement? The question was recently asked of the readers of _Tit-Bits_, who were desired to select the best twelve advertisements which appeared in this magazine during six months--the competitor selecting the greatest number of advertisements which corresponded to the choice of the majority being rewarded with a substantial prize. The grounds on which the competitors based their opinions were probably, consciously or unconsciously, very much alike in most instances. It is interesting to consider what these grounds were. We reproduce on this and following pages reduced facsimiles of the twelve winning advertisements, which will serve to illustrate the several points which go to make up a good advertisement.