and a thump and a kind of groaning and wiggling noise.

"What on earth is that?" says Dillaway.

"I shouldn't be surprised," says Peter, cool as a mack'rel on ice, "if
that was his royal highness, the count."

He took up the lamp and we all hurried outdoors and 'round the corner.
And there, sure enough, was the count, sprawling on the ground with his
leather satchel alongside of him, and his foot fast in a big steel trap
that was hitched by a chain to the lower round of the ladder. He rared
up on his hands when he see us and started to say something about an
outrage.

"Oh, that's all right, your majesty," says Brown. "Hi, Chianti, come
here a minute! Here's your old college chum, the count, been and put his
foot in it."

When the new barber showed up the count never made another move, just
wilted like a morning-glory after sunrise. But you never see a worse
upset man than Ebenezer Dillaway.

"But what does this mean?" says he, kind of wild like. "Why don't you
take that thing off his foot?"

"Oh," says Peter, "he's been elongating my pedal extremity for the last
month or so; I don't see why I should kick if he pulls his own for a
while. You see," he says, "it's this way:

"Ever since his grace condescended to lend the glory of his countenance