Remembering with a shudder how Bell Telephone and Standard Oil might once have been bought for a song, Bushwyck Carr determined that in this case his pudgy fingers should not miss the forelock of Time and the divided skirts of Chance. Squinting at the viewless ether through his monocle he beheld millions in it; so did William Augustus Destyn and the other sons-in-law. Only the unmarried triplets, Flavilla and Drusilla, remained amiably indifferent in the midst of all these family financial scurryings and preparations to secure world patents 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.