CONTENTS:I. HE ATTENDS A PICNIC. 11 II. HE MAKES AN EVENING CALL. 23 III. GOES TO A TEA-PARTY. 31 IV. HE DOES HIS DUTY AS A CITIZEN. 39 V. HE COMMITS SUICIDE. 47 VI. HE IS DOOMED FOR WORSE ACCIDENTS. 56 VII. I MAKE A NARROW ESCAPE. 65 VIII. HE ENACTS THE PART OF GROOMSMAN. 72 IX. MEETS A PAIR OF BLUE EYES. 82 X. HE CATCHES A TROUT AND PRESENTS IT TO A LADY. 92 XI. HE GOES TO THE CIRCUS. 99 XII. A LEAP FOR LIFE. 107 XIII. ONE OF THE FAIR SEX COMES TO HIS RESCUE. 116 XIV. HIS DIFFIDENCE BRINGS ABOUT AN ACCIDENT. 123 XV. HE BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH A CHICAGO WIDOW. 131 XVI. AT LAST HE SECURES A TREASURE. 139 XVII. HE ENJOYS HIMSELF AT A BALL. 147 XVIII. HE OPENS THE WRONG DOOR. 154 XIX. DRIVEN FROM HIS LAST DEFENCE. 161 an excerpt from 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. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.