of anything else. And he had just reached the point where he was explaining that a little detective work would be required to bring the cruel mother to justice, when a great light broke over him. He saw a very simple way out of his predicament; he could tell Gizzard that he was raising the mustache for detective purposes, and Gizzard would never suspect that Nancy Guilford was at the bottom of it.
For a moment he paused, his eyes squinted for serious effect, then said in a tone of the strictest confidence, "Giz, if a feller's goin' to do good detective work, he's got to have a good disguise. And I'm goin' to have a blinger!" He moved closer to Gizzard as he asked, "Don't you smell some'pm?"
Gizzard rather thought he did.
Sube nodded significantly. "Well, that's it! I'm raisin' a mustache!"
Gizzard was thrilled. And as Sube eloquently unfolded the tale of the magic bottle, his audience was aroused to a pitch of boisterous enthusiasm. Then followed complications that Sube had not anticipated; Gizzard, too, wanted to raise whiskers and become a detective.
And as there appeared to be no way to prevent it without risk of exposure, Sube reluctantly took him in as a sort of Dr. Watson, and duly anointed his cheeks in the interest of a pair of long, flowing side-whiskers. A bristling mustache rather appealed to Gizzard, but was denied him on the ground of priority. Sube had already started a mustache, and there must be no duplications.
Boon for Baldness promised nothing within a week; and for the first time in their life the boys found the spring vacation beginning to drag. They pored over the pictures alleged to have been taken "Before Using" and "After Using," until the poor chromos were ragged and worn; they discussed the "astonishing results" that were guaranteed, until they had exhausted all the possibilities of surprise, and still the time dragged. Then, more as a diversion than anything else, they began to shadow the suspected mother; and this they found so absorbing that Sube almost lost sight of the original purpose for which he had started his mustache.
A careful log of the suspect's movements was kept in a pocket memorandum book that came in the carton with the Boon for Baldness. The entries were masterpieces of brevity.
Monday April 10