I had never confessed to any one the episode of the giant-powder or the Chicago widow; but the story of the baby had crept out, through the conductor, who told it to the station-master. If you want to know how _that_ ended, I'll just tell you that, maddened by the grins and giggles of the passengers, I started for the car door with that baby, but, in passing those three giggling young ladies, I suddenly slung the infant into their collective laps, and darted out upon the station platform. That's the way I got out of that scrape. As I was saying, after all those dreadful experiences, I was glad to settle down in the store, where I honestly strove to overcome my weakness; but it was still so troublesome that father always interfered when the girls came in to purchase dry-goods. He said I almost destroyed the profits of the business, giving extra measure on ribbons and silks, and getting confused over the calicoes. But I'm certain the shoe was on the other foot; there wasn't a girl in town would go anywhere else to shop when they could enjoy the fun of teasing me; so that if I made a few blunders, I also brought custom. Cold weather came again, and I was one year older. There was a grand ball on the twenty-second of February, to which I invited Hetty Slocum, who accepted my escort. We expected to have lots of fun. The ball-room was in the third story of the Spread-Eagle Hotel. There was to be a splendid supper at midnight in the big dining-room; hot oysters "in every style," roast turkey, chicken-pie, coffee, and all the sweet fixings. It turned out to be a clear night; I took Hetty to the hotel in father's fancy sleigh, in good style, and having got her safely to the door of the ladies' parlor without a blunder to mar my peace of mind, except that I stepped on her slippered foot in getting into the sleigh, and crushed it so, that Hetty could hardly dance for the pain, I began to feel an unusual degree of confidence in myself, which I fortified by a stern resolution, on no account to get to blushing and stammering, but to walk coolly up to the handsomest girls and ask them out on the floor with all the self-possessed gallantry of a man of the world.