



Produced by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, Sankar
Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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                         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
contradictory nature. I adored them as angels; I dreaded them as if
they were mad dogs, and were going to bite me.

My parents were respected residents of a small village in the western
part of the State of New York. I had been away at a boys' academy for
three years, and returned about the first of June to my parents and to
Babbletown to find that I was considered a young man, and expected to
take my part in the business and pleasures of life as such. My father
dismissed his clerk and put me in his place behind the counter of our
store.

Within three days every girl in that village had been to that store
after something or another--pins, needles, a yard of tape, to look at
gloves, to _try on shoes_, or examine gingham and calico, until I was
happy, because out of sight, behind a pile high enough to hide my
flushed countenance. I shall never forget that week. I ran the
gauntlet from morning till night. I believe those heartless wretches
told each other the mistakes I made, for they kept coming and coming,
looking as sweet as honey and as sly as foxes. Father said I'd break
him if I didn't stop making blunders in giving change--he wasn't in
the prize-candy business, and couldn't afford to have me give
twenty-five sheets of note paper, a box of pens, six corset laces, a
bunch of whalebones, and two dollars and fifty cents change for a
two-dollar bill.

He explained to me that the safety-pins which I had offered Emma Jones
for crochet-needles were _not_ crochet-needles; nor the red wafers I
had shown Mary Smith for gum-drops, gum-drops--that gingham was not
three dollars per yard, nor pale-blue silk twelve-and-a-half cents,
even to Squire Marigold's daughter. He said I must be more careful.

"I don't think the mercantile business is my _forte_, father," said I.

"Your fort!" replied the old gentleman; "fiddlesticks! We have nothing
to do with military matters. But if you think you have a special call
to anything, John, speak out. Would you like to study for the
ministry, my son?"

"Oh, no, indeed! I don't know exactly what I would like, unless it
were to be a Juan Fernandez, or a--a light-house keeper."

Then father said I was a disgrace to him, and I knew I was.

On the fourth day some young fellows came to see me, and told me there
was to be a picnic on Saturday, and I must get father's horse and
buggy and take one of the girls. In vain I pleaded that I did not know
any of them well enough. They laughed at me, and said that Belle
Marigold had consented to go with me; that I knew her--she had been in
the store and bought some blue silk for twelve-and-a-half cents a
yard; and they rather thought she fancied me, she seemed so ready to
accept my