f 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 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-class 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
fr