atents in a monopoly which promised the
social regeneration of the globe.

The considerable independent fortunes that their mother had left them
they invested in Green Mouse, at their father's suggestion; but further
than that they took no part in the affair.

For a while the hurry and bustle and secret family conferences mildly
interested them. Very soon, however, the talk of psychic waves and
millions bored them; and as soon as the villa at Oyster Bay was opened
they were glad enough to go.

Here, at Oyster Bay, there was some chance of escaping their money-mad
and wave-intoxicated family; they could entertain and be entertained by
both of the younger sets in that dignified summer resort; they could
wander about their own vast estate alone; they could play tennis, sail,
swim, ride, and drive their tandem.

But best of all--for they were rather seriously inclined at the age of
eighteen, or, rather, on the verge of nineteen--they adored sketching, in
water colors, out of doors.

Scrubby forelands set with cedars, shadow-flecked paths under the scrub
oak, meadows where water glimmered, white sails off Center Island and
Cooper's Bluff--Cooper's Bluff from the north, northeast, east,
southeast, south--this they painted with never-tiring, Pecksniffian
patience, boxing the compass around it as enthusiastically as that
immortal architect circumnavigated Salisbury Cathedral.

And one delicious morning in early June, when the dew sparkled on the
poison ivy and the air was vibrant with the soft monotone of mosquitoes
and the public road exhaled a delicate aroma of crude oil, Drusilla and
Flavilla, laden with sketching-blocks, color-boxes, camp-stools, white
umbrellas and bonbons, descended to the great hall, on sketching bent.

Mr. Carr also stood there, just outside on the porch, red, explosive,
determined legs planted wide apart, defying several courtly reporters,
who for a month had patiently and politely appeared every hour to learn
whether Mr. Carr had anything to say about the new invention, rumors of
which were flying thick about Park Row.

"No, I haven't!" he shouted in his mellow and sonorously musical bellow.
"I have told you one hundred times that when I have anything to say I'll
send for you. Now, permit me to inform you, for the hundred and first
consecutive time, that I have nothing to say--which won't prevent you
from coming back in an hour and standing in exactly the same ridiculous
position you now occu