The "Kid's" furniture consisted of a pair of steel hand-cuffs, steel shackles for his legs, a stool, and a cot.
Unable to obtain a steady foothold on that shaky support, he flounders about; and the more he struggles the more he entangles his shackles.
But the most ordinary cause of a single life, is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to think their girdles and garters, to be bonds and shackles.