trap," he says, nodding, "I bought it in Boston. I had the teeth filed
down, but the man that sold it said 'twould hold a horse. I left the
ladder by his grace's window, thinking he might find it handy after he'd
seen his friend of other days, particularly as the back door was locked.

"And now," goes on Brown, short and sharp, "let's talk business. Count,"
he says, "you are set back on the books about sixty odd for old home
comforts. We'll cut off half of that and charge it to advertising. You
draw well, as the man said about the pipe. But the other thirty you'll
have to work out. You used to shave like a bird. I'll give you twelve
dollars a week to chip in with Macaroni here and barber the boarders."

But Dillaway looked anxious.

"Look here, Brown," he says, "I wouldn't do that. I'll pay his board
bill and his traveling expenses if he clears out this minute. It seems
tough to set him shaving after he's been such a big gun around here."

I could see right off that the arrangement suited Brown first rate and
was exactly what he'd been working for, but he pretended not to care
much for it.

"Oh! I don't know," he says. "I'd rather be a sterling barber than a
plated count. But anything to oblige you, Mr. Dillaway."

So the next day there was a nobleman missing at the "Old Home House,"
and all we had to remember him by was a trunk full of bricks. And Peter
T. Brown and the "queen" was roosting in the Lover's Nest; and the new
Italian was busy in the barber shop. He could shave, too. He shaved me
without a pull, and my face ain't no plush sofy, neither.