Intending to feed Alec, Presto realizes that his show is starting and rushes onstage instead. Alec refuses to cooperate with the act until he is given the carrot, and turns the hats against Presto in a variety of ways that lead to escalating degrees of humiliation, such as letting him catch his finger in a mousetrap, hit himself in the eye with an egg, and get his head sucked into a ventilation shaft; each of these mishaps is interpreted by the audience as being part of the act. Presto continues to antagonize Alec at the same time, first turning the carrot into a flower and later smashing it to pulp with a piece of a ladder, resulting in Alec sticking Presto's hand in an electrical socket via the wizard's hat.
