“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 buccanner 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 rotten egg fiend, you villain 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 wear it for a watch pocket in your vest.  No boy can frighten me by crimus.  But tell me, how did you get even with your Pa?”

“Well, give me a glass of cider and we will be friends and I will tell you.  Thanks!  Gosh, but that cider is made out of mouldy dried apples and sewer water,” and he took a handful of layer raisins off the top of a box to take the taste out of his mouth, and while the grocer charged a peck of rutabagas, a gallon of cider and two pounds of raisins to the boy’s Pa, the boy proceeded: