BEFORE USING
Astride the ridgepole of his father's stable Sube Cane sat with the easy grace of a range-rider, gently rising in his stirrups in unison with the pounding of imaginary unshod hoofs on the soft turf of a dreamland prairie, as he conversed in low tones with a dark-haired maiden who rode in fancy beside him. And, as he rode, he gently rubbed his upper lip with an index finger.
Nor was this rubbing the aimless wandering of an idle forefinger; it was persistent and purposeful. For although Sube was only twelve years of age and still in knickerbockers, he was set upon the propagation of a mustache.
The desire and the opportunity of fulfillment had come to him at almost the same instant. Voices in the library had attracted his attention a few moments before, and pausing outside the door he had heard Dr. Richards jovially expounding to his father the virtues of a large sample bottle of hair restorer which apparently possessed all the quickening agencies known to man, and was, with the trifling exception of an unendurable odor, all that the name implied—a Boon for Baldness.
The doctor's intimation that the stuff would grow hair on the side of a house aroused Sube's interest. And soon after the doctor's departure the boy purloined the bottle from his father's medicine cabinet, and strictly in the interest of scientific investigation rubbed a small quantity on the side of the house.
It was during this experiment that the big idea was born. If it would grow hair on the side of a house, why not—?
A pleasant vision floated before Sube's eyes. He saw himself beneath the kindly disguise of a flowing mustache, mingling unrecognized among his friends. Then suddenly the adoring eyes of Nancy Guilford penetrated his mask. And she began to seek his forgiveness for having called him a kid; and with a continuous crossing of her heart she promised over and over that she would never again refer to the fact that she was two years older than he.
"That's all right, Nance," he condescended to say; "we'll let that go. But if you want to have a man with a mustache for a fellow, you've got to promise that you'll never speak to Biscuit Westfall again as long as you live—"
But before Nancy's promise could be recorded, cruel footsteps intruded upon the vision. And slipping the bottle under his coat Sube retired to the barn, where he made the first fragrant application to his upper lip, and then retired to the roof, where there would be plenty of ventilation while he rubbed it in.
And here Gizzard Tobin found him a short time afterwards, to Sube's intense discomfiture, for the young mustache-raiser was caught like a rat in a trap and with no adequate explanation for smelling to heaven. Sube did not overwhelm his caller with the warmth of his welcome.