The Blunders of a Bashful Man Part 3

"Tea or coffee?"

"If you please," said I.

"_Which_?" whispered Belle.

"Oh, excuse me; coffee, 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 color of the beet-pickles.

She finally pa.s.sed me a cup, and, in my embarra.s.sment, 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.

I enjoyed that tea-party as geese enjoy _pate de fois gras_. It was a prolonged torment under the guise of pleasure. I refused everything I wanted, and took everything I didn't want. I got a back of the cold chicken; there was nothing of it but bone. I thought I must appear to be eating it, and it slipped out from under my fork and flew into the dish of preserved cherries.

We had strawberries. I am very partial to strawberries and cream. I got a saucer of the berries, and was looking about for the cream when Miss 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, I thank you," and so I lost the delicious frothed cream that I coveted.

The agony of the thing was drawing to a close. I was longing for the time when I 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 offered my arm to Belle, as I supposed. Between the sitting-room and parlor there was a little dark hall, and when we got in there I summoned up courage, pa.s.sed 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 parlor, and I found I'd been squeezing Widow Jones' waist.

She gave me a look full of languis.h.i.+ng sweetness that scared me nearly to death. I thought of Mr. Pickwick and Mrs. Bardell. Visions of suits for breaches of promise arose before my horrified vision. I glanced wildly 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 up so," said the widow, coquettishly, "I know what young men are."

She said it aloud, on purpose for Belle to hear. I felt like killing her. I might have done it, but one thought restrained me--I should be hung for murder, and I was too bashful to submit to so public an ordeal.

I hurried 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. I thought I would speak to him.

"Come," said I, "let us take a little promenade outside--the women are too much for me."

He made no answer. I heard giggling and t.i.ttering breaking out all around the room, like rash on a baby with the measles.

"Come on," said I; "like as not they're laughing at us."

"Look-a-here, you shouldn't speak to a fellow till you've been introduced," said that wicked Fred behind me. "Mr. Flutter, allow me to make you acquainted with Mr. Flutter. He's anxious to take a little walk with you."

It was so; I had been talking to myself in a four-foot looking-gla.s.s.

I did not feel like staying for the ice-cream and kissing-plays, but had a sly hunt for my hat, and took leave of the tea-party about the eighth of a second afterward.

CHAPTER IV.

HE DOES HIS DUTY AS A CITIZEN.

Babbletown began to be very lively as soon as the weather got cool, the fall after I came home. We had a singing-school once a week, a debating society that met every Wednesday evening, and then we had sociables, and just before Christmas a fair. All the other young men had a good time. Every day, when some of them dropped in the store for a chat and a handful of raisins, they would aggravate me by asking:

"_Aren't_ we having a jolly winter of it, John?"

_I_ never had a good time. _I_ never enjoyed myself like other folks.

I spent enough money and made enough good resolutions, but something always occurred to destroy my antic.i.p.ated pleasure. I can't hear a lyceum or debating society mentioned to this day, without feeling "cold-chills" run down my spine.

I took part in the exercises the evening ours was opened. I had been requested by the committee to furnish the poem for the occasion. As I was just from a first-cla.s.s academy, where I had read the valedictory, it was taken for granted that I was the most likely one to "fill the bill."

I accepted the proposition. To be bashful is a far different thing from being modest. I wrote the poem. I sat up nights to do it. The way candles were consumed caused father to wonder where his best box of spermacetis had gone to. I knew I could do the poetry, and I firmly resolved that I would read it through, from beginning to end, in a clear, well-modulated voice, that could be heard by all, including the minister and Belle Marigold. I would not blush, or stammer, or get a frog in my throat. I swore solemnly to myself that I would not. _Some folks_ should see that my bashfulness was wearing off faster than the gold from an oroide watch. Oh, I would show 'em! Some things could be done as well as others. I would no longer be the laughing-stock of Babbletown. My past record should be wiped out! I would write my poem, and I would _read it_--read it calmly and impressively, so as to do full justice to it.

I got the poem ready. I committed it to memory, so that if the lights were dim, or I lost my place, I should not be at the mercy of the ma.n.u.script. The night came. I entered the hall with Belle on my arm, early, so as to secure her a front seat.

"Keep cool, John," were her whispered words, as I left her to take my place on the platform.

"Oh, I shall be cool enough. I know every line by heart; have said it to myself one hundred and nineteen times without missing a word."

I'm not going to bore you with the poem here; but will give the first four lines as they were _written_ and as I _spoke_ them:

"Hail! Babbletown, fair village of the plain!

Hail! friends and fellow-citizens. In vain I strive to sing the glories of this place, Whose history back to early times I trace."

The room was crowded, the president of the society made a few opening remarks, which closed by presenting Mr. Flutter, the poet of the occasion. I was quite easy and at home until I arose and bowed as he spoke my name. Then something happened to my senses, I don't know what; I only knew I lost every one of them for about two minutes. I was blind, deaf, dumb, tasteless, senseless, and feelingless. Then I came to a little, rallied, and perceived that some of the boy were beginning to pound the floor with their heels. I made a feint of holding my roll of verses nearer the lamp at my right hand, summoned traitor memory to return, and began:

"Hail!"

Was that my voice? I did not recognize it. It was more as if a mouse in the gallery had squeaked. It would never do. I cleared any throat--which was to have been free from frogs--and a strange, hoa.r.s.e voice, no more like mine than a crow is like a nightingale, came out with a jerk, about six feet away, and remarked, as if surprised:

"Hail!"

With a desperate effort, I resolved that this night or never I was to achieve greatness. I cleared the way again and recommenced:

"Hail!"

A boy's voice at the back of the room was heard to insinuate that perhaps it would be easier for me to let it snow or rain. That made me angry. I was as cool as ice all in a moment; I felt that I had the mastery of the situation, and, making a sweeping gesture with my left hand, I looked over my hearers' heads, and continued: