The Blunders of a Bashful Man | Page 8

said I.
"Come with me; I will take care of you, Mr. Flutter," said Belle, taking my arm and marching me out into the sitting-room, where a long table was heaped full of inviting eatables. She sat me down by her side, and I felt comparatively safe. But Fred and Miss Smith were just opposite and they disconcerted me.
"Mr. Flutter," said the hostess when it came my turn, "will you have tea or coffee?"
"Yes'm," said I.
"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 passed me a cup, and, in my embarrassment, 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, passed 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 languishing 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 tittering 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-glass.
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 anticipated pleasure. I can't hear a lyceum