The Blunders of a Bashful Man

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The Blunders of a Bashful Man, by

Metta Victoria Full Victor This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Blunders of a Bashful Man
Author: Metta Victoria Full Victor
Release Date: March 6, 2007 [EBook #20754]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Transcriber's Note:
The author of this book is Metta Victoria Full 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