"What on earth is that you have got on your upper lip?" said the grocery
man to the bad boy, as he came in and began to peel a rutabaga, and his
upper lip hung down over his teeth, and was covered with something that
looked like shoemaker's wax, "You look as though you had been digging
potatoes with your nose."

"O, that is some of Pa's darn smartness. I asked him if he knew anything
that would make a boy's moustache grow, and he told me the best thing
he ever tried was tar, and for me to rub it on thick when I went to bed,
and wash it off in the morning. I put it on last night, and by gosh
I can't wash it off. Pa told me all I had to do was to use a scouring
brick, and it would come off, and I used the brick, and it took the skin
off, and the tar is there yet, and say, does my lip look very bad?"

The grocery man told him it was the worst looking lip he ever saw, but
he could cure it by rubbing a little cayenne pepper in the tar. He said
the tar would neutralize the pepper, and the pepper would loosen the
tar, and act as a cooling lotion to the lacerated lip. The boy went to
a can of pepper behind the counter, and stuck his finger in and rubbed a
lot of it on his lip, and then his hair began to raise, and he began
to cry, and rushed to the water-pail and ran his face into the water to
wash off the pepper. The grocery man laughed, and when the boy had got
the pepper washed off, and had resumed his rutabaga, he said:

"That seals your fate. No man ever trifles with the feelings of the bold
buccanneer of the Spanish main, without living to rue it. I will lay for
you, old man, and don't you forget it. Pa thought he was smart when he
got me to put tar on my lip, to bring my moustache out, and to-day he
lays on a bed of pain, and to-morrow your turn will come. You will
regret that you did not get down on your knees and beg my pardon. You
will be sorry that you did not prescribe cold cream for my bruised lip,
instead of cayenne pepper. Beware, you base twelve ounces to the pound
huckster, you gimlet-eyed seller of dog sausage, you sanded sugar idiot,
you small potato three card monte sleight of hand rotton egg fiend, you
villian that sells smoked sturgeon and dogfish for smoked halibut. The
avenger is on your track."

"Look here, young man, don't you threaten me, or I will take you by the
ear and walk you through green fields, and beside still waters, to the
front door, and kick your pistol pocket clear around so you can we