ving read considerably more fiction than he
had. This with my keen intuitive perceptions, I felt fitted me to act
again in an advisory capacity, for my critical faculties were massive,
although, as I have hinted, my executive qualities as a lover were
undersized.

I had time for Jim's affairs, because society had peculiar horrors for
me. Let a woman say something at a dinner or a reception, and my neck
would begin to swell like a pouter pigeon's and my collar would close
down like a pair of hedge clippers centered at the back collar button.
This would cause no alarm in the young woman, for she would imagine the
choking symptoms were only signs of an embarrassment produced by her
interest in me. This would not have been a bad thing, for bashful men
always get the most encouragement, and if persistently bashful, are
coaxed into all the intricate arts of the gentle game by the woman who
is interested in them. Thus I always seemed to have the good luck of the
bashful man up to the last gasp, and until I began to turn blue. She
would then see that it was apoplexy, and not her charms, which was
undoing me. But the apoplexy, the bulging veins and the reddening eyes
were forgotten when I sought relief by inserting the first two fingers
of each hand on either side of my collar, and with a short, outward
jerk, would open the starchy shears that were fastening like a
constrictor around my air valves. This would startle the young creature
into diffidence, and I always hated to do it, but it was the only way I
could assume my self-control. Following the application of the
two-finger movement, relief would come quickly, with a splutter and a
stammering apology for not catching her last remark. My volubility from
that point to the next attack, when interrupted by a suggestion which
would derail me, or by a third party not following our train of thought,
would impress the hearer that it was the collar which was tight. This
remarkable misfortune, of course, deprived me of the influence of the
bashful man, and as I was no dissembler I could not take advantage of
the appearance of my distress. My blushes were wholly due to choking and
could not pass for flashes reflexed by heart-throbs.

There was another thing I had to battle with from my entrance into
society. Jim could look like a lord in a dress suit. I always looked
like a lord knows what! The _Sun_ once published a picture of the dress
trousers of Grover Cleveland and David B. Hill