Mrs. Westfall followed menacingly at a little distance with further animadversions, when suddenly she remembered her guest, whose presence she had entirely overlooked in the stress of her emotions. She did not doubt that he was looking on with mortification and horror; and, accordingly, with such moderation of her angry voice as she could command, she added:
"Go home, you wicked boy, and pray to God to forgive you."
As the Westfall family withdrew, practical Sube whispered to his companions, "If Biscuit's on to his job he'll put on an extra pair of pants before he does any prayin'."
Fate gave indications of having designed Sube for a business career, and although he tried to keep out of the clutches of trade during vacation he was not entirely successful.
When, one morning, Mr. Gizzard Tobin, always Sube's friend and often his well-wisher, found Sube seated on the bottom of an upturned pail in his father's barn laboriously endeavoring to cut in two with a pair of lawn clippers a perfectly good tennis net, his modest inquiry as to Sube's purpose in so doing was met with the response that it was for "luc'ative bus'ness."
Regarding this explanation as somewhat indefinite he asked, "What bus'ness?"
"I told you it's for bus'ness," Sube informed him rather stiffly, and then recalling a phrase with which Annie had crushed the iceman a few moments before, he added, "But that is neither here nor there."
Gizzard was susceptible to high-sounding phrases, and he was accordingly impressed; but having nothing equally lofty in his own vocabulary he attempted no reply.
Sube snipped on in silence until the net dropped on the floor in two pieces. Then he tossed aside the clippers, and catching up the smaller piece of net spread it out before him very much as a tailor displays a handsome panting, and announced:
"Bus'ness!" sneered Gizzard. "Bus'ness! I'd like to know what bus'ness uses a ol' piece of tennis net."
"Lots of bus'nesses uses nets," replied Sube with an air of superiority; "but that is neither here nor there."
At this second flight Gizzard began to feel that he was seriously handicapped by his lack of education. But he struggled as best he could against the overwhelming odds by asking rather peevishly: