Phileas Fogg muttered to himself as he tinkered with his latest invention. He wasn't entirely certain what it was yet, but he was sure he'd figure something out. In the middle of a muttering full of inane physics equations, he heard a burst of surprised laughter. Recognizing the beautiful sound instantly, he smiled to himself as he thought of his Monique.

Unconsciously, he began cleaning up, eager to see his sweet lady again. Quickly getting everything organized he trod swiftly down the hall to the parlor, following the exclamations and further giggling.

Striding into the blue and cream painted room, he paused upon seeing two quite familiar, but entirely nameless, men from the Academy seated on the sofa across from his darling Monique. They also appeared to have been chuckling and burst out with loud guffaws upon sighting him. Monique, too, giggled a bit, but settled quickly and stood to greet him with a kiss on the cheek.

Grabbing his hands, she pulled him into the room and introduced the two men hurriedly, before exclaiming, "Phileas, tell me you did not! Jonathan and Mikael must be joking, surely!"

Confused, but endeared by her effervescent enthusiasm, Phileas smiled as he asked, "Done what, my dear? You must explain if I am to answer."

With a slight blush, she elaborated, "Why, these men were telling me of one of your experiments from before the trip. A foghorn for an alarm clock, Phileas! Honestly!"

Here she had to pause to get past another round of giggles at the small blush spreading across his features. Composing himself as well as he could around the minor embarrassment this memory always brought, Phileas cleared his throat before responding, with as much dignity as possible, "Well, I must say it was a success, at the least."

At this, the two men cut in with mirrored incredulous expressions.

"Oh yes, good sir, it was successful—"

"In fact, we do believe the entire city was made reluctantly aware of that fact."

And as his guests and his lovely lady broke down once more in fits of hysterical laughter, Phileas backed quickly out of the room with a muttered, "Very good to see you again, but I must get back to work."