



Produced by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, Sankar
Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdp.net









                         Transcriber's Note:

The author of this book is Metta Victoria Fuller Victor writing under the
Pen name of Walter T. Gray. But the Author's name is not given in the
original text.

       The Table of Contents is not part of the original text.



                             THE BLUNDERS

                                 OF A

                             BASHFUL MAN.


                          _By the Author of_

                         "A BAD BOY'S DIARY"



                 COPYRIGHT, 1881, BY STREET & SMITH.




                              NEW YORK:

                  J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY.

                           57 ROSE STREET.

       *       *       *       *       *




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I.      HE ATTENDS A PICNIC.

II.     HE MAKES AN EVENING CALL.

III.    GOES TO A TEA-PARTY.

IV.     HE DOES HIS DUTY AS A CITIZEN.

V.      HE COMMITS SUICIDE.

VI.     HE IS DOOMED FOR WORSE ACCIDENTS.

VII.    I MAKE A NARROW ESCAPE.

VIII.   HE ENACTS THE PART OF GROOMSMAN.

IX.     MEETS A PAIR OF BLUE EYES.

X.      HE CATCHES A TROUT AND PRESENTS IT TO A LADY.

XI.     HE GOES TO THE CIRCUS.

XII.    A LEAP FOR LIFE.

XIII.   ONE OF THE FAIR SEX COMES TO HIS RESCUE.

XIV.    HIS DIFFIDENCE BRINGS ABOUT AN ACCIDENT.

XV.     HE BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH A CHICAGO WIDOW.

XVI.    AT LAST HE SECURES A TREASURE.

XVII.   HE ENJOYS HIMSELF AT A BALL.

XVIII.  HE OPENS THE WRONG DOOR.

XIX.    DRIVEN FROM HIS LAST DEFENCE.

       *       *       *       *       *




THE

BLUNDERS OF A BASHFUL MAN.

CHAPTER I.

HE ATTENDS A PICNIC.


I have been, am now, and shall always be, a bashful man. I have been
told that I am the only bashful man in the world. How that is I can
not say, but should not be sorry to believe that it is so, for I am of
too generous a nature to desire any other mortal to suffer the mishaps
which have come to me from this distressing complaint. A person can
have smallpox, scarlet fever, and measles but once each. He can even
become so inoculated with the poison of bees and mosquitoes as to make
their stings harmless; and he can gradually accustom himself to the
use of arsenic until he can take 444 grains safely; but for
bashfulness--like mine--there is no first and only attack, no becoming
hardened to the thousand petty stings, no saturation of one's being
with the poison until it loses its power.

I am a quiet, nice-enough, inoffensive young gentleman, now rapidly
approaching my twenty-sixth year. It is unnecessary to state that I am
unmarried. I should have been wedded a great many times, had not some
fresh attack of my malady invariably, and in some new shape, attacked
me in season to prevent the "consummation devoutly to be wished." When
I look back over twenty years of suffering through which I have
literally stumbled my way--over the long series of embarrassments and
mortifications which lie behind me--I wonder, with a mild and patient
wonder, why the Old Nick I did not commit suicide ages ago, and thus
end the eventful history with a blank page in the middle of the book.
I dare say the very bashfulness which has been my bane has prevented
me; the idea of being cut down from a rafter, with a black-and-blue
face, and drawn out of the water with a swollen one, has put me so out
of countenance that I had not the courage to brave a coroner's jury
under the circumstances.

Life to me has been a scramble through briers. I do not recall one
single day wholly free from the scratches inflicted on a cruel
sensitiveness. I will not mention those far-away agonies of boyhood,
when the teacher punished me by making me sit with the girls, but will
hasten on to a point that stands out vividly against a dark background
of accidents. I was nineteen. My sentiments toward that part of
creation known as "young ladies" were, at that time, of a mingled and
contrad