Sube Cane had often seen his father wrapped in contemplation, so he knew how the thing ought to be done. He accordingly clasped his hands behind his back beneath the place where coat-tails should have been, drew his eyebrows into a scowl, pursed his lips, and fixed his gaze on the object to be considered.

This proved to be a hole; a small hole in the side of ol' Uncle George Bond's barn, close to the ground. It was perfectly rounded at the top and equipped with a neat sliding-door; and it did look interesting. But then, any hole that there is even the slightest possibility of crawling through looks interesting to a boy. Sube was so engrossed in his contemplations that he started perceptibly on hearing a gruff voice inquire what he thought he was doing there.

He quickly withdrew his hands from underneath the imaginary coat-tails and released the scowl. Then he glanced around to find himself looking into the grinning face of his friend, Hon. Gizzard Tobin.

"Thought you'd scare me, didn't you?" Sube growled.

"Thought so!" cried Gizzard. "Say! You jumped a mile!"

"Well, I guess I didn't jump! I knew it was you all the time."

"Yes, you didn't! What'd you jump for, then?"

"Didn't jump. Jus' moved a little."

"I should say you did move! You thought ol' Uncle George was right after you!"

"That shows how much you know about it," Sube sneered as he bent over to examine the hole at closer range.

Gizzard vaulted the fence and came up beside him. "What you lookin' at that ol' chicken-hole for?" he asked disdainfully.

Sube cocked his head over on one side as if to view the problem from another angle and replied: "I was jus' wonderin'."

"What about?"

"Jus' wonderin' if a feller could crawl through there," said Sube pointing a stubby finger at the hole.

"You couldn't, and I wouldn't want to," replied Gizzard with unaccustomed promptness.

"Why couldn't I?" asked Sube deliberately.

"'Cause that there slide's hooked on the inside!"

Sube muttered something unintelligible as he bent over and inserted his finger under the sliding-door. He raised it far enough to demonstrate that it was not fastened, and dropped it as he asked:

"Now why wouldn't you want to?"

"S'pose I want ol' Uncle George to kick the liver out of me! Why, I jus' looked in the door one day when he was in there, and he swore at me till I was out of sight; and he said if he ever caught me on his premises again, he'd kick the liver out of me! And I bet he would, too!"

Relatively speaking, ol' Uncle George Bond was nobody's uncle; but as a matter of nomenclature he was everybody's. He was death on boys, to be sure. However, his unfriendly attitude was of very little importance at this particular time because he was out of town.

"Gone to Sodus for a month," was the information Sube presently imparted.

"What makes you think so?" asked the skeptical Gizzard, still intent on the preservation of his liver.

"Saw him buy his ticket and get on the train this mornin'. That's what makes me think so! And I heard him tell the agent he was goin' for a month's vacation!"

"All right," said Gizzard. "I'll go in there if you will—if we can get in."

Sube squeezed through without a great deal of difficulty; but Gizzard stuck fast somewhere about amidships. He kicked and wriggled while Sube pulled, but it was all in vain. It was necessary for Gizzard to back out and shift his cargo before he could come into port. He presently handed in to Sube one baseball, one broken padlock, one bicycle-wrench, one slingshot, and other articles too numerous to mention; and having been thus lightened, he came through without difficulty.

The wonders of the forbidden country unfolded with such bewildering rapidity that the youthful explorers had difficulty in deciding what to try first. However, they soon concluded to redecorate the interior of the barn with remnants left over from the recent painting of ol' Uncle George's house.

When they had tired of being painters they opened a carpenter shop and started to build a boat out of some old boards with the aid of ol' Uncle George's razor-edged tools. This went very well until Sube hammered his thumb, when he retired from the concern and left Gizzard to complete the vessel alone; but after Gizzard had planed a thin layer from the end of his finger he too retired, and the carpenter business went to the wall.

They next engaged in the manufacture of cider, opening a mill in a corner of the barn, where they found a small hand-press. Sube turned the crank while Gizzard poured in bushels of imaginary apples. Then they "put on the brakes" to squeeze out the imaginary juice, which was drawn from a spigot at the bottom in real glasses and bottles with which the place seemed to abound. After a little the strain on their imagination became so great that something had to be done to relieve it.

"If we jus' had a few apples we could make a little real cider," Sube suggested tentatively.

"Well, I know where we can get some," said Gizzard. "There's a tree jus' loaded with harvest apples right out behind the barn!"

Without another word both boys started for the opening by which they had entered, but Gizzard, being a little nearer, reached it first. While he was wriggling his way to the outside Sube tried the back door and found it fastened only by a hook. So it happened that when Gizzard reached the apple tree he found Sube already there with his cap half full of apples. Then the cider business began in earnest.

The apples were small and not very juicy, and the boys soon found that there was quite a little work connected with the manufacture of cider in commercial quantities. But they did manage to make a glassful apiece before they were compelled to knock off for the noon hour.

The partners went out by the back door, which they fastened shut with a piece of board; and as they walked home they made plans for the future conduct of their business.

"We got to put on a few hands to pick up the apples while we run the mill, if we want to increase our produck," Sube informed his partner gravely. "There's too much overhead for us to handle alone."

"I'd say there was too much underfoot," returned Gizzard with equal gravity. "What we want is apples—"

"I guess you don't understand much about bus'ness," was Sube's lofty comment. "Overhead's a reg'lar bus'ness word that means—means somethin' special."

Gizzard defended his position heatedly. "I guess I know jus' much about it as you do!" he retorted. "Underfoot's a reg'lar word, too! And it means some'pm special! I've heard my dad use it a hundred times."

For a moment Sube maintained a discreet silence. He wanted to avoid having trouble with his partner at the very beginning of their business career if it could be done with honor; especially as the title to the business was somewhat clouded. Then he said diplomatically:

"Well, anyway, we got to put on a few more hands to pick up apples."

"Right you are," agreed Gizzard. "Who we goin' to get?"

"Oh, we might hire Stucky Richards, and Cathead, and Cottontop Sigsbee. S'pose that'll be enough?"

"We don't want to get too many! The more we have, the more cider they'll drink up."

"That's right. I guess they'll do."

The cider mill commenced business in earnest that afternoon with a full roster of hands. And they soon demonstrated their sufficiency, for apples were delivered at the press faster than the proprietors could dispose of them. When they had picked up all the apples on the ground they threshed the tree until hardly an apple was left on it; and they even went so far as to pick a bushel of crabapples for their employers.

The result of the afternoon's work (which was well up in the gallons) was placed in a convenient cask equipped with a spigot. Then the enterprise was reorganized as a saloon. Ol' Uncle George's workbench made an ideal bar, at which thirsty customers clamored for beer, liquor, and other ugly-sounding beverages, that Sube and Gizzard as bartenders served with a flourish an expert sodawater clerk might well have envied.

Then the histrionic muse, never far beneath the surface of youth, came forth and transformed the scene into an extemporaneous drama that was a howling success in spite of its leanings towards the morality play. This production, called by its authors, "Ten Knights in a Barroom"—was, in fact, so successful that the players promised themselves the pleasure of repeating it daily during the ensuing month.

But this proved to be impossible; for that night ol' Uncle George was called home by a fire in his shoe store.

The management declined to make use of ol' Uncle George's properties while he remained in town for fear that he might have occasion to use them himself, and thus bring about some slight unpleasantness in their hitherto delightful relations. Meanwhile the members of the company fidgeted and chafed under the delay.

A rehearsal attempted in Canes' barn was, for some unknown reason, a decided frost. Then they tried Stucky Richards' barn, which was right next door to ol' Uncle George's; and although things went somewhat better there, they lacked the zest of the initial performance.

Stucky's properties, as far as they went, were above criticism; his workbench made an excellent bar; his broken chairs were deliciously hopeless; his cuspidor was admitted by all to be much better than ol' Uncle George's; his bottles and glassware were vastly superior; but there he stopped.

He had no cider press, and no means of getting one. He had no cider; and worst of all he had no spigot-equipped cask without which no disreputable saloon can exist.

But this was not all that troubled the Ten Knights in a Barroom company. Professional jealousy crept in to plague their once placid ranks. By secretly consulting the faded poster in Severn's blacksmith shop (from which he had adapted the name for his production) Sube learned that he had overlooked a character. The next time the company assembled he attempted to rectify his error.