Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1882-12-08
AN UNDERGRADUATES Al Mt.
A Pleasant English story of the Pres
cnt Day.

Frederick Flushington belonged to a
small college, and in doing so conferred
upon it one of the few distinctions it
could bonst-namely, that of possessing
the very bashfullest man in the whole
university.
But his college did not treat him with
any excess of adulation on that account,
probably from prudent fear of rub
bing the bloom off his modesty they al
lowed him to blush unseen-which was
the condition in which he preferred to
blush.
He felt himself oppressed by paucity
of ideas and II difficulty i'll knowing which
way to look in the presence of his fellow
men, which made him never SO happy as
when he had fastened his outer door and
secured himself from all possibility of
intrusion though it was almost an I'M
necessary precaution, for nobody ever
thought of coming to see Washington.
In appearance he was man of middle
height, with long, scraggy neck and a
large head, which gave him the air of be-
ing much shorter than he really was ; he
had little weak eyes, Il nose and mouth of
no particular shape, and very smooth
hair of no definite color He had timid,
deprecating air, which seemed due to the
consciousness that he was an uninterest-
ing anomaly, and he certainly was as i'm
pervious to the ordinary influence of his
surroundings as any undergraduate well
could be. He lived a colorless, aimless
life in his little rooms under the roof
reading every morning from till 2, with
IL superstitiously mechanical regularity,
though very often his books failed to con-
vey any ideas whatever to his brain, which
was not Il particularly powerful organ.
If the afternoon was fine he generally
sought out his one friend, who was n few
degrees less shy than himself, and they
went 4 monosyllabic walk together or if
it was wet he read the papers at the
Union, and i'll the evenings after hall he
studied general literature"-a graceful
term for novels-or laboriously spelt out
IL sonata upon his piano, a habit which
did not increase his popularity.
Fortunately for Flushing he had no
gyp or his life might have been made a
positive burden for him, and with his bed
maker he was rather IavOrite as "a gen
tleman what gave no trouble" meaning
that when he observed his sherry unac-
countably sinking like the water in n lock
when the sluices are up, Washington was
too delicate to refer to the phenomenon.
He was sitting one afternoon over his
modest lunch of bread and butter, pot
ted meat and lemonade, when all at once
he heard a sound of unusual voices and n
strange tiutter OF dresses coming up the
winding stone staircase outside, and was
instantly seized with cold dread.
There was no particular reason for be-
ing alarmed, although there were certain
ly ladies' mounting the steps--probably
they were friends of the man opposite,
who was always having his people up.
But still Flushington had that odd pre-,
sentiment which nervous people have
sometimes that something unpleasant is
on its way to them. and he half rose from
his chair to shut his outer oak.
1t was too late ; the dresses were rust
ling now in his very passage-there was {
pause, a few faint smothered laughs ant
little feminine coughs, then two taps a
the door.
Come in" cried Flushington family
he wished he had been reading anything
but the work by M. Zola which was pop
ped up in front of him. 1t is your milo
man who frequently has taste for seeing
the less reputable side of life in this sec
ond-hand way, and Washington woult
toll manfully through the voluminoui
pages, hunting up every third word in thu
dictionary with a sense of injury when
as was often the case, it was not to b,
found. Still, there was sort of intel
lectual orgy about it which had strong
Vaccinations for him, while he knew
enough of the language to beaware wheI
the incidents approached the improper
though he was not always able to see
quite clearly in what this improperly
consisted.
The door opened, and his heart seemed
to stop and all the blood rushed violently
to his head as n large lady came sweep
ing in, her face ripping with broad
smile of affection.
She mortified Flushington, who knew
nobody with the least claim to smile al