The triplets--Flavilla, Drusilla, and Sybilla--all clothed precisely alike in knee kilts, plastrons, gauntlets and masks, came to attention, saluting their parent with their foils. The Boznovian fencing mistress, Madame Tzinglala, gracefully withdrew to the dressing room and departed. "Which of you three girls went into the laboratory this morning?" repeated their father impatiently. The triplets continued to stand in a neat row, the buttons of their foils aligned and resting on the hardwood floor. In graceful unison they removed their masks; three flushed and unusually pretty faces regarded the author of their being attentively--more attentively still when that round and ruddy gentleman, executing a facial contortion, screwed his monocle into an angry left eye and glared. "Didn't I warn you to keep out of that laboratory?" he asked wrathfully; "didn't I explain to you that it was none of your business? I believe I informed you that whatever is locked up in that room is no concern of yours. Didn't I?" "Yes, Pa-_pah_." "Well, confound it, what did you go in for, then?" An anxious silence was his answer. "You didn't all go in, did you?" he demanded in a melodious bellow. "Oh, no, Pa-_pah!_" "Did two of you go?" "Oh-h, n-o, Pa-_pah!_" "Well, which one did?" The line of beauty wavered for a moment; then Sybilla stepped slowly to the front, three paces, and halted with downcast eyes. "I told you not to, didn't I?" said her father, scowling the monocle out of his eye and reinserting it. "Y-yes, Pa-_pah_." "But you _did?_" "Y-yes----" "That will do! Flavilla! Drusilla! You are excused," dismissing the two guiltless triplets with a wave of the terrible eyeglass; and when they had faced to the rear and retired in good order, closing the door behind them, he regarded his delinquent daughter in wrathy and rubicund dismay. "What did you see in that laboratory?" he demanded. Sybilla began to count on her fingers. "As I walked around the room I noticed jars, bottles, tubes, lamps, retorts, blowpipes, batteries----" "Did you notice a small, shiny machine that somewhat resembles the interior economy of a watch?" "Yes, Pa-_pah_, but I haven't come to that yet----" "Did you go near it?" "Quite near----" "You didn't touch it, did you?" "I was going to tell you----" "_Did_ you?" he bellowed musically. "Answer me, Sybilla!" "Y-yes--I did." "What did you suppose it to be?" "I thought--we all thought--that you kept a wireless telephone instrument in there----" "Why? Just because I happen to be president of the Amalgamated Wireless Trust Company?" "Yes. And we were dying to see a wireless telephone work.... I thought I'd like to call up Central--just to be sure I could make the thing go-- _What_ is the matter, Pa-_pah?_" He dropped into a wadded armchair and motioned Sybilla to a seat opposite. Then with another frightful facial contortion he reimbedded the monocle. "So you deliberately opened that door and went in to rummage?"