"And you'll come, Mr. Flutter, won't you? It'll be a failure unless _you_ are there. You must _promise_ to come. We won't go out of this store till you do. And, oh, don't forget to bring _your purse_ along. We expect all the young gentlemen to _come prepared_, you know." There is no doubt that I went to the fair. It made my heart ache to do it--for I'd already been pretty extravagant, one way and another--but I put a ten-dollar bill in my wallet, resolved to spend every cent of it rather than appear mean. I don't know whether I appeared mean or not; I do know that I spent every penny of that ten dollars, and considerable more besides. If there was anything at that fair that no one else wanted, and that was not calculated to supply any known want of the human race, it was palmed off on me. I became the unhappy possessor of five dressed dolls, a lady's "nubia," a baby-jumper, fourteen "tidies," a set of parlor croquet with wickets that wouldn't stand on their legs, a patent churn warranted to make a pound of fresh butter in three minutes out of a quart of chalk-and-water, a set of ladies' nightcaps, two child's aprons, a castle-in-the-air, a fairy-palace, a doll's play-house, a toy-balloon, a box of marbles, a pair of spectacles, a pair of pillow-shams, a young lady's work-basket, seven needle-books, a cradle-quilt, a good many bookmarks, a sofa-cushion, and an infant's rattle, warranted to cut one's eye teeth; besides which I had tickets in a fruit cake, a locket, a dressing-bureau, a baby-carriage, a lady's watch-chain, and an infant's wardrobe complete. When I feebly remonstrated that I'd spent all the money I brought, I was smilingly assured by innumerable female Tootses that "it was of no consequence"; but I found there _were_ consequences when I came to settle afterward for half the things at the fair, because I was too bashful to say No, boldly. Fred Hencoop auctioned off the remaining articles after eleven o'clock. Every time he put up something utterly unsalable, he would look over at me, nod, and say: "Thank you, John; did you say fifty cents?" or "Did I hear you say a dollar? A dollar--dollar--going, gone to our friend and patron, John Flutter, Jr.," and some of the lady managers would "make a note of it," and I was too everlastingly embarrassed to deny it. "John," said father, about four o'clock in the afternoon the day after the fair--"John, did you buy all these things?"--the front part of the store was piled and crammed with my unwilling purchases. "Father, I don't know whether I did or not." "How much is the bill?" "$98.17." "How are you going to pay it?" "I've got the hundred dollars in bank grandmother gave me when she died." "Draw the money, pay your debts, and either get married at once and make these things useful, or we'll have a bonfire in the back yard." "I guess we'd better have the bonfire, father. I don't care for any girl but Belle, and she won't have me."