sniveled miserably.

"Of course it was all an accident when you rendered every one of our guinea pigs sterile, wasn't it?" sneered the other. "That was a nice invention, Henry. All it did was to cut off our income for months on end, and nearly destroy our reputation for reliability as breeders of laboratory guinea pigs."

"Oh, Joseph!" Henry's voice was an abject wail. His goatee hung limp and bedraggled. "You know I didn't mean any harm any of those times. Really I didn't. I just want to be a scientist—" Again he began sniveling.

Professor Paulsen, still glaring, opened his mouth to denounce his partner further. Then, thinking better of it, he relaxed and put his arm around Henry's quivering shoulders.

"Do you think I like to talk to you like this?" he asked, leading the way toward the porch. "Do you think it's pleasant for me?" Wearily, he shook his head. "I hate to be shouting at you all the time, Henry. It's just that patience will stretch only so far. Then it snaps."

A pause.

"I keep thinking you'll learn by experience, Henry. That you'll realize you can't be forever blowing the roof off the laboratory, or Lord knows what else, and quit fooling around with things you don't understand.

"But instead, you go right on. You dabble into some new branch of science, and a cloud of trouble sweeps down on us like a typhoon on Zamboanga."

Together, the friends climbed the porch steps and took seats on the ancient but comfortable wicker settee.

Henry darted a quick glance at his partner. Saw that the professor's face once more was placid; that the storm was over. Unconsciously, the little man's goatee perked up. He readjusted his steel-rimmed glasses to a more stable position.

"Honestly, Joseph, this time my invention can't do any harm," he ventured. "Really it can't."

For a moment fire flashed in the scientist's eyes. Then faded again.

"All right, Henry. What is it this time?"

Henry extended the binoculars.

"Here, Joseph. Look at the nudist camp."

"But the fence—"

"Please, Joseph. Go ahead and look."

"Oh, all right—"

The professor raised the field glasses.

The next instant he nearly dropped them.

"What on earth—!"

"See, Joseph?" shrilled Henry. "Isn't it a wonderful invention? Isn't it?"

His tall partner took down the binoculars and stared at them in blank amazement, his face a puzzled mask.

"I'd swear I saw right through that fence!" he gasped. "I looked right into the middle of a whole pack of nudists!"

"Of course!" Henry was bubbling with delight. "That's why I call them my X-ray eyeglasses. You can see through anything with them." He took the glasses from the professor. Again leveled them at the nudist colony.

Then, giggling:

"Doesn't that blonde girl have the cutest—"

"Henry!"

"Oh, all right." The little man returned the binoculars to his partner, who studied them with interest.

"Just what principle do these things work on, Henry?" he asked curiously.

Henry beamed. His goatee was at its jauntiest, most confident angle. The light of triumph played in his eyes.

"Really, Joseph, it's quite simple," he proclaimed. "There are lots of rays that go through anything, you know, except maybe lead. So I just developed a special glass that translated those rays into images, instead of just using the light rays. It was easy. The only thing you have to be careful of is to focus real close, because otherwise you'll look right through the thing you want to see—"

"Simple!" choked the scientist. "Easy! Henry, I hope you kept complete notes this once." He raised the glasses again. Studied a signboard on the nearby road.

"Oh, yes, I've got good notes, Joseph—"

"And you still need a concave eyepiece, so that the images won't reverse," Professor Paulsen interrupted. "The way it works now, pictures are all right, but 'CAMELS' are spelled 'SLEMAC'."

Henry