Sketches of Young Gentlemen | Page 2

good a promise of
light whisker as one might wish to see, and possessed of a very
velvet-like, soft-looking countenance. We do not use the latter term
invidiously, but merely to denote a pair of smooth, plump,
highly-coloured cheeks of capacious dimensions, and a mouth rather
remarkable for the fresh hue of the lips than for any marked or striking
expression it presented. His whole face was suffused with a crimson
blush, and bore that downcast, timid, retiring look, which betokens a
man ill at ease with himself.
There was nothing in these symptoms to attract more than a passing
remark, but our attention had been originally drawn to the bashful
young gentleman, on his first appearance in the drawing-room above-
stairs, into which he was no sooner introduced, than making his way
towards us who were standing in a window, and wholly neglecting
several persons who warmly accosted him, he seized our hand with
visible emotion, and pressed it with a convulsive grasp for a good
couple of minutes, after which he dived in a nervous manner across the
room, oversetting in his way a fine little girl of six years and a quarter
old-and shrouding himself behind some hangings, was seen no more,
until the eagle eye of the hostess detecting him in his concealment, on
the announcement of dinner, he was requested to pair off with a lively
single lady, of two or three and thirty.
This most flattering salutation from a perfect stranger, would have
gratified us not a little as a token of his having held us in high respect,
and for that reason been desirous of our acquaintance, if we had not
suspected from the first, that the young gentleman, in making a
desperate effort to get through the ceremony of introduction, had, in the
bewilderment of his ideas, shaken hands with us at random. This
impression was fully confirmed by the subsequent behaviour of the
bashful young gentleman in question, which we noted particularly, with
the view of ascertaining whether we were right in our conjecture.
The young gentleman seated himself at table with evident misgivings,
and turning sharp round to pay attention to some observation of his

loquacious neighbour, overset his bread. There was nothing very bad in
this, and if he had had the presence of mind to let it go, and say nothing
about it, nobody but the man who had laid the cloth would have been a
bit the wiser; but the young gentleman in various semi-successful
attempts to prevent its fall, played with it a little, as gentlemen in the
streets may be seen to do with their hats on a windy day, and then
giving the roll a smart rap in his anxiety to catch it, knocked it with
great adroitness into a tureen of white soup at some distance, to the
unspeakable terror and disturbance of a very amiable bald gentleman,
who was dispensing the contents. We thought the bashful young
gentleman would have gone off in an apoplectic fit, consequent upon
the violent rush of blood to his face at the occurrence of this
catastrophe.
From this moment we perceived, in the phraseology of the fancy, that it
was 'all up' with the bashful young gentleman, and so indeed it was.
Several benevolent persons endeavoured to relieve his embarrassment
by taking wine with him, but finding that it only augmented his
sufferings, and that after mingling sherry, champagne, hock, and
moselle together, he applied the greater part of the mixture externally,
instead of internally, they gradually dropped off, and left him to the
exclusive care of the talkative lady, who, not noting the wildness of his
eye, firmly believed she had secured a listener. He broke a glass or two
in the course of the meal, and disappeared shortly afterwards; it is
inferred that he went away in some confusion, inasmuch as he left the
house in another gentleman's coat, and the footman's hat.
This little incident led us to reflect upon the most prominent
characteristics of bashful young gentlemen in the abstract; and as this
portable volume will be the great text-book of young ladies in all future
generations, we record them here for their guidance and behoof.
If the bashful young gentleman, in turning a street corner, chance to
stumble suddenly upon two or three young ladies of his acquaintance,
nothing can exceed his confusion and agitation. His first impulse is to
make a great variety of bows, and dart past them, which he does until,
observing that they wish to stop, but are uncertain whether to do so or
not, he makes several feints of returning, which causes them to do the
same; and at length, after a great quantity of unnecessary dodging and
falling up against the other passengers, he returns and