COURTING.

Inangahua Times, Volume IV, Issue 39, 9 July 1877, Page 2

COURTING.

Whenever a man gp.es courting everybody seems to know all about ifc. His demeanour tells the observant spectator the business he is intent upon. He might just as well plamrd himself with the hgnd, 'I go a touting." Everybody a cognisant or it, and looks knowing, ana asks him if the " northern lights^ were bright last night at one o'clock," and " how the market is for kerosene up at Daddy Brown's," and a score of other questions equally out of place. We have in our family, says a contemporary, a young man who is deeply — we trust most successfully — engaged in going a courting; and our warmest sympathies 'have been aroused for him. When Sunday afternoon arrives, ifc is plain to see that something is about to happen. Our young man is fidgetp and non communicative, and cannot sit in one place half a minute at a time. He is continually interviewing his watch and comparing it with the old eight-day coffinshaped clock in the corner. He looks in the glass frequently, and draws his forehead locks back and then forward, and combs them up and past them down, and is unsatisfied with the effort throughout. The smell of bay-rum and bergamofc is painfully apparent. When he shakes out his handkerchief, musk is percetpible. '^ His I ©its shine like mirrors. There is a faint odor of cardamon seeds in his mouth when he yawns. He smooths his budding moustache with affectionate little, pats, and, "feels his invisible whiskers continually, tp make sure they are still there — a fact whicli is not established to. outside observers by the sense of sight. He tries on all his stock of neckties without finding which one is just the thing ; and he has spasms of brushing his coat, that commence with violence and last till one grows nervous for fear the broadcloth will never be able to stand, it. He declines soup that day at dinner. Ha. says it is because he do'esn't feel hungry, but we know it is because there are onions in it, and onions, as everyoue knows, do not sweeten oue's breath to any great extent. If spoken to on a sudden, he stares and

blushes, and looks as guilty as if he had been caught stealing something; and directly one does not speak to him he goes back to the delightful occupation of staring at nothing, and waiting for the hoar hand to creep round to seven. Anp at seven ho sets forth, clean and tirly from tip to toe, lor kng precisely i S i « ho had just stepped out of a bandbox.