large house and got out. I never had seen this
man with a collar on. He now stepped under a lamp and got a venerable
paper collar out of his coat pocket, along with a hoary cravat, and put
them on. He ascended the stoop, and entered. Presently he reappeared,
descended rapidly, and said:

"Come--quick!"

We hurried away, and turned the corner.

"Now we're safe," he said, and took off his collar and cravat and
returned them to his pocket.

"Made a mighty narrow escape," said he.

"How?" said I.

"B' George, the Countess was there!"

"Well, what of that?--don't she know you?"

"Know me? Absolutely worships me. I just did happen to catch a glimpse
of her before she saw me--and out I shot. Haven't seen her for two
months--to rush in on her without any warning might have been fatal. She
could not have stood it. I didn't know she was in town--thought she
was at the castle. Let me lean on you--just a moment--there; now I
am better--thank you; thank you ever so much. Lord bless me, what an
escape!"

So I never got to call on the Earl, after all. But I marked the house
for future reference. It proved to be an ordinary family hotel, with
about a thousand plebeians roosting in it.

In most things Rogers was by no means a fool. In some things it was
plain enough that he was a fool, but he certainly did not know it. He
was in the "deadest" earnest in these matters. He died at sea, last
summer, as the "Earl of Ramsgate."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories
by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

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