THE END.

Reproach us not, mamas?--Discard us not, ye blushing divinities who have,
with your sex's softness, dandled the heir of Applebite in your
imaginations!--Wait!--Wait till we have explained! We have a motive; but
as we are novices in this style of literature, we will avail ourselves, at
our leave-taking, of the valedictory address of one who is more "up to the
swindle."


_To the Readers of the Heir of Applebite._

DEAR FRIENDS,--Having finished the infanto-biography upon which we have
been engaged, it is our design to cut off our heir, and bring our tale to
a close. You may want to know why--or if you don't, we will tell you.

We should not regard the anxiety, the close confinement, or the constant
attention inseparable from a nursery, did we feel that the result was
agreeable to you. But we have not done so. We have been strongly tempted
to think, that after waiting from week to week, you have never arrived at
anything interesting. We could not bear this jerking of our conscience,
which was no sooner ended than begun again.

Most "passages in a tale of _any length_ depend materially for the
interest on the intimate relation they bear to what has gone before, or
what is to follow." We sometimes found it difficult to accomplish this.

Considerations of immediate profit ought, in such cases, to be of
secondary importance; but, for the reasons we have just mentioned, we have
(after some pains to resist the temptation) determined to abandon this