Arthur was twenty-eight and genetically incapable of growing more than a patchy, sad goatee that looked like a dying shrub.

Arthur Pringle was a man of aggressive mediocrity, a mid-level accountant whose most daring trait was his commitment to a Tuesday-night puzzle club. That changed when he inherited a map from his eccentric Great Uncle Barnaby—a map that claimed to lead to the "Fountain of Eternal Dignity," located deep in the mist-shrouded peaks of the Himalayas.

The proprietor, a woman with eyes like sharpened flint, pulled a wooden box from beneath a counter. Inside lay . It was a masterwork of hand-knotted yak hair and human silk, treated with a resin that made it waterproof, fire-retardant, and inexplicably smelling of old cedarwood.

Arthur strapped it on. The transformation was instant. He didn't just look older; he looked like a man who had survived a shipwreck and then wrestled the shark that caused it.

"It’s $400," she whispered. "And remember: the spirit is in the adhesive."

Desperate, Arthur bypassed the local costume shops. He didn't want a "Party City" polyester chin-wig; he needed something that could withstand a gale-force wind and the scrutiny of a mountain ghost. He found himself in the back alley of London’s theater district, entering a shop called The Follicle Forge .

He flew to Nepal. He trekked for six days, the fake beard itching like a thousand ants, yet held firm by the Forge’s industrial-grade spirit gum. Finally, at the Gate of Whispers, a spectral monk materialized. The monk looked at Arthur’s magnificent, flowing silver beard, nodding in deep, silent respect. "Pass, Elder," the ghost chimed.