University of Virginia Library

THE SENSITIVE MAN SEES A
BLOOMER.

The Sensitive Man came in, one day, just after dinner,
threw himself into a chair, and fainted. After a mug
or two of Cochituate water had been dashed in his interesting
face, he came to a little, gazed wildly upon the
circle that surrounded him, and said, in a sort of unearthly
whisper, “Where is she?” Nobody knew what he
meant. The fog, a moment later, rolled from his soul,
and he was enabled to explain, with the aid of some slight
stimulant.

A crowd in the street had obstructed his path, as
he walked pensively along with his eyes cast down.
Looking up, a vision of beauty burst upon his ravished
sight, and he stood entranced as he gazed upon it; and
when it passed away with the crowd, he climbed upon an
omnibus and watched that object, through his tunneled
hand, until it became indistinct and lost in the distance.
That object was a Bloomer! He had long ardently
wished for this opportunity. In visions of the night had
angels in short dresses and trousers thrust themselves
among his sleeping fancies, to the bewilderment of his
waking thoughts. It had become the great idea of his
mind, and all his other thoughts bowed to this, as did
the sheaves of the Israelitish brethren to the sheaf of
Joseph of old. He had at last seen a Bloomer. The
climax of his earthly desire was attained. The driver of

the 'bus, callous to the emotion of his bosom, asked him
“what 'n thunder he was a-looking at, up there?”
The Sensitive Man made but one step to the ground, so
buoyant was he, and he bounded like cork. He could
have leaped over the State-House. Little boys and
sedate passengers stepped back dismayed, and a gentleman
in a black coat and white neckcloth looked around
anxiously after a policeman. What were policemen to
the Sensitive Man? Those terrific functionaries were
nothing! Even the cold reality of a watch-house floor
would be soft as down, could he carry with him the
consciousness that he had seen a Bloomer. He looked
to see if her passing figure had not left its impression, in
aerial portraiture, upon the impalpable atmosphere. He
looked upon the pave to detect the print of her charming
foot upon the insensate bricks. But she had fled, like
some bright exhalation of the morning, and he turned
back sorrowing. A coach came nigh running over him.
The tension of his spirit relaxed, — enduring only to
bring him within the precinct of his vocation, when his
too sensitive nature gave out, and the result was as
explained above.

And hourly, since, has he longingly gazed from the
window, in ardent hope of seeing again the beauteous
vision which had enthralled him, and disappointment,