The long strain began to tell on Mr. Cane. He became more nervous and irritable than ever, and seemed constantly to wear a look of nasal suspicion. Sube's treatment was in only its third day when his father began to eat his lunch down town. The next day he failed to come home to dinner; and thereafter during the rest of the fateful week he ate no meals at home with the exception of breakfast, and that he managed to get before the other members of the family were out of bed.
As the week of germination drew towards a close the boys became restless. "We ought to begin to do some'pm," Sube suggested as he sat rubbing the Boon into the pores of his long-suffering upper lip. "My week will be up to-morrow morning at five minutes of ten, and yours will be up at about quarter after."
"I'll bet mine'll be up before quarter after," predicted Gizzard enthusiastically. "I'll bet I have my whiskers by ten minutes after. Gee, but I'll be glad when I don't have to use this ol' Boon any longer. It certainly is bad!"
"Oh, it ain't so bad," replied Sube; "anyway, not for those that use it. I'm glad we didn't have to go to school this week. Sunday School was bad enough. But as I tol' you, we got to be doin' some'pm. We want to pick up that party jus' about as quick as we can after we get our whiskers."
"Well," suggested Gizzard briskly, "let's go and get her 'bout ha' pas' ten to-morrow morning."
Sube shook his head dubiously. "Not by daylight," he drawled professionally. "That's too easy. That's the way policemen do it. We'll have to trick her."
"Trick her?" muttered Gizzard. "What for? How we goin' to trick her?"
"Very sim-ple," drawled Sube. "We'll pin a note on her door to-night tellin' her to come to the Prespaterian Church steps to-morrow night at a certain time—and when she shows up, we'll pinch her."
And so it was arranged. The note was prepared and in due time affixed to the front door of the suspect's house in so conspicuous a place that she found it early the next morning.
But the hours that followed the finding of the note were tragic ones for Sube and Gizzard. They had repaired to the roof of the barn, there to await the accomplishment of the days when their whiskers should be delivered. And as the time drew near and no pin-feathers appeared, they began to have visions of a sudden bursting forth of hair not unlike the eruption of a small volcano. But the time came, and passed; and nothing happened to change the youthful character of their hopeful faces.