and my chin smoothed in a neat but gaudy barber shop, presided over by my friend Spaghetti here, and my equally valued friend the count.”
“So,” says Peter, smiling and cool as ever, “when it all came back to me, as the song says, I journeyed to Scranton accompanied by a photograph of his lordship. I was lucky enough to find Macaroni in the same old shop. He knew the count's classic profile at once. It seems his majesty had hit up the lottery a short time previous for a few hundred and had given up barbering. I suppose he'd read in the papers that the imitation count line was stylish and profitable and so he tried it on. It may be,” says Brown, offhand, “that he thought he might marry some rich girl. There's some fool fathers, judging by the papers, that are willing to sell their daughters for the proper kind of tag on a package like him.”
Old man Dillaway kind of made a face, as if he'd ate something that tasted bad, but he didn't speak.
“And so,” says Peter, “Spaghetti and I came to the Old Home together, he to shave for twelve per, and I to set traps, etcetera. That's a good 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.
And before the season was over the engagement was announced. Old Dillaway took it pretty well, considering. He liked Peter, and his having no money to speak of didn't count, because Ebenezer had enough for all hands. The old man said he'd been hoping for a son-in-law sharp enough to run the “Consolidated Stores” after he was gone, and it looked, he said, as if he'd found him.
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