SELECTION FROM “THE BLUNDERS OF A BASHFUL MAN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1081, 12 January 1883, Page 3

SELECTION FROM “THE BLUNDERS OF A BASHFUL MAN.

(By the Author of “ A Bail Coy’s Diary.”) The widow Jones got her stockings the next day. As I left them at the door she stuck her head out of an upper window and said to me that “ the Sewing Society met at her house on Thursday afternoon, and the men-fo'ks was corning to tea and to spend the evening, an’ 1 must he sure an’come, or the girls would he so disappointed,” and she urged and urged until 1 had to promise her 1 would attend her sociable. Drat all tea-parties ! say I. I was never comfortable at one in my life. If you’d give me my choice between going to a teaparty and picking potato-bugs off the vines all alone on a hot summer day, 1 shouldn’t hesitate a moment between the two. I should choo-'e the hugs ; and I can’t say I fancy potato-hugs either. On Wednesday I nearly killed an old lady through putting up tartar emetic for creamof- tartar If she’d eaten another biscuit made with it she’d have died, and I’d have been responsible. Father was really vexed, and said T might be a lighthouse keeper as quick as I pleased ; but by that time 1 felt as if I couldn’t keep a lighthouse without Belle Marigold to help me, and so I promised to be more careful, and kept on cleiking. The thermometer stood at SO degrees in the shale when I left the store at live o.clock on Thursday afternoon to go to that infallible tea-party. 1 was glad the day was warm, for I wanted to wear my white linen suit, with a blue cravat and Panama hat. I felt independent even of Fred Hencoop as I walked along the street under the shade of the elms ; hut the nv'nute I was inside Widow Jones’s gate, and walking up to the door, the thermometer went up to somewhere near 200 degrees. There were some thing like a dozen heads at each of the parlor windows, and all women’s heads at that. Six or eight more were peeping out of the sitting-room, where they were laying the fable for tea Bahbletown always did seem to me to have more than its fair share of female population. 1 think I would like t» live in one of those mining towns out in Colorado, where women are as scarce as hairs on the inside of a man’s hand. Somebody coughed as I was going up the walk. Did yon ever have a girl cough at you ? one of those mean, teasing, expressive little coughs. 1 had pricficed - at home in my own room taking off my Panama with a graceful, sweeping bow, and saying in calm, wellbred tones : “ Hood evening, Mrs Jones. Hood evening, ladies. I trust you have had a pleasant as well as profitable afternoon." I bad practiced that in the privacy of my chair her. Wiiat I really did get off was something like this.— ‘Good Jones, Mrs Evening. I should say, good evening widows—ladies, I beg your pardon,” by which time I was mopping my forehead with my handkerchief, and could just ask, as I sank into the that chair I saw, “ Is your mother well, Mrs Jones?’ which was highly inopportune, since said mother ha I been years dead before 1 was horn. As I sat down, a pang sharper than some of those endured by the Spartans ran through my right leg. I was instantly aware that 1 had plumped down on a needle, as well as a piece of fancy-work, hut I had not, tha courage to rise and extract the excruciating thing.

I turned pale with pain, bub l>y keeping absolutely still found that I could endure it, and so I sat motionless like a wooden man, with a frozen smile on my features. Belle was out in the other room, helping set the table, for which mitigating cireumstancss 1 was sufficiently thankful. Fred Hencoop was on the other side of the room, holding a skein of silk for Sallie Brown. He looked across at me, smiling with a malice that made me hate him. Out of that hate was born a stern resolve I would conquer my diffidence ; I would prove to bo Fred Hencoop, and any other fellow like him, that I was as good as he was, and could at least equal him iu the attractions of my sex. There was a pretty girl sitting quite near me. I bad been introduced to her at the picnic. It seemed to me that she was eyeing me om iously.but I was mad enough at Fred to show him that I could be as cool as any body, after I got used to it. 1 hemmed, wiped the perspiration from my face—caused now more by the needle than by the heat—and remarked, sitting stiff as a ramrod, and smiling like an angel-: “June is my favourits month, Miss Smith—is it yours ? When I think of June I always think ot strawberries and cream, and ro-oh oh-ses ? ” It was the needle I had forgotten in the excitement of the subject and had moved. “Is anything the matter ? ” Miss Bmit.li tenderly inquired. “ Nothing in the world, Miss Smith. I had a stitch iu my side, but it ; s over now,” “ S,itches are ve y painful,” sheobserved syrnpathisingly. 1 • 1 don’t like to trouble you, Mr Flutter, but I think —I believe—l guess—you are sitting on my work. If you will rise I will try and finish it before tea." No help for it, and I arose, at the same moment dexterously slipping ray hand behind me, and withdrawing the thorn in the flesh. “Oh, dear, where is my needle,” said the young lady, anxiously scrutinising the ci ushed worsted work, I gave it to her with a blush. She burst out laughing. “ I don’t wonder you bad a stitch in yonr side,” she remarked sliylv. “ Hem ! ” remarked Fred, very loud ; “ do you feel sew-sew, John ? ” Just then Belle entered the parlour, looking as sweet as a pink, and wearing the fas'i I had given ner. She bowed to me very coquettishly, and announced tea. “Too bad! ’’ continued Fred; “you have broken the thread of Mr Flutter’s discourse with Miss Smith. But Ido not wish to inflict need/e-less pain, so I will not betray him.” “1 hope Mr Flutter is not in trouble again.” said Bello, quickly. “Oh, no. Fred is only trying to say something sharp,'' said I. “ C-me with me; I will take care of you, Mr Flutter,” said Belle, taking my arm, and marching me out into the sittingroom, where a long table was heaped full of inviting eatables. She sat me down by her side, and 1 felt comparatively safe. But Fied and Miss Smith were just opposite, and they disconcerted me, “Mr Flutter,” said the hostess, when it came to ray turn, “ will you have tea or coffee ? ” “ Yes’m,” said I. “ Tea nr coffee.” “ If you ulease,” said i. “ Which,” whispered Bello. “ Oh, excuse me, coff-e, ma’am.” “Cream and sugar. Mr Flutter!” “ I’m not particular which, Mrs Jones.” “Do you take both?” she persisted, with everybody at the table looking my way. " No, ma’am, only coffee,” said I, my face the colour of the beet-pickles. She finally passed me a cup, and in my embarrassment I immediately took a swallow and burnt my mouth. “ Have you lost any friends lately ? ” asked that wretched Fred, seeing the tears in my eyes. 1 enjoyed that tea party as geese enjoy pate de foi gras. It was a prolonged torment under the guise of pleasure. I refused everything I wanted, and took everything I didn’t want, 1 got the back of a cold chicken ; there was nothing of it but ' one, I th"Ugbt 1 mustappear to be eating it, and it, slipped nut from under my fork and flew inio the dish of preserved cherries. We hid strawbe-nies. I am very partial to strawberries and cream. I got a saucer of the berries, and was looking about for cream when Mi»s Smith’s mother, at my right, hand, said : “Mr Flutter, will you have some whip with your strawberries ? ” Whip with my berries ; I thought she was making fun of me, and stammered—“No, 1 thank you ;” and so 1 lost the delicious, frothy cream that I coveted. The agony of the thing was drawing to a close I was longing for the time when 1 could go home and get some cold potatoes out of mother’s cupboard. I hadn’t eaten worth a cent. Pretty soon we all moved back our chairs and rose. I ottered my arm to Belle, as I supposed. Between the sitting-room and pa-lour there was a little dark hall, and when we got iu there I summoned up courage, passed my arm around my fair partner, and gave her a hug. “ You ain’t so bashful as you look,” said she, and then we stepped into the parlour, and I found I’d been squeezing Widow Jones’s waist. She gave me a look full of languishing sweetness that scared mo nearly to death. I thought of Mr Pickwick and Mrs Bardell. Visions of suits for breaches of promise arose before mv horrified vision. I glanced widly around in search of Belle; she was hanging on a young lawyer’s arm, and not looking at me. “ La, now, you needn’t color np so,” said the widow coquettishly ; “ I know what you young men are." She said it aloud, on purpose for Belle to luar. I felt like killing her. I might have done it, but one thought restrained me— I should be hung for murder ; and 1 was too bashful to submit to so public an ordeal. 1 hurrie 1 across the room to get rid of her There was a young fellow standing there who looked about as out-of place as I felt. L thought I would speak to him. “Come,” sabl I, “let ns take a little promenade outside—the woman are too much for me.” He ma le no answer. I heard giggling and tittering breaking out all around the room, like a rash on a baby with the me isles. “ Come on,” said 1 ; “ like as not they’re laughing at ns." Look-a here, you shouldn’t speak to a fellow till you’ve been introduced,” said that wicked Fred behind me. “Mr Flut ter, allow me to make you acquainted with Mr Flutter. He’s anxious to take a little walk with you ” It was so ; 1 had been talking to myself in a 4ft looking-glass. I did not. feel liko staying for the icecream and kissing plays, but bad a sly hunt for my bat, and took leave of the tea-party about the eighth of a second afterwards.