PREFACE.


The volume here submitted to the public is composed of selections from
my contributions to the columns of the American press. The stories and
sketches were written, most of them, in the intervals of relaxation
from more serious labor and the daily business of life; and they would
be suffered to disappear in the Lethe that awaits old magazines and
newspapers, had not their extensive circulation, and the partial
judgment of friends,--for I must not omit the stereotyped plea of
scribblers,--flattered me that their collection in a permanent form
would not prove wholly unacceptable. Some of these articles were
published anonymously, or under the signature of "The Old 'Un," and
have enjoyed the honor of adoption by persons having no claim to their
paternity; and it seems time to call home and assemble these vagabond
children under the paternal wing.

The materials for the tales were gathered from various sources: some
are purely imaginative, some authentic, not a few jotted down from
oral narrative, or derived from the vague remembrance of some old play
or adventure; but the form at least is my own, and that is about all
that a professional story-teller, gleaning his matter at random, can
generally lay claim to.

Some of these sketches were originally published in the Boston "Olive
Branch," and many in Mr. Gleason's popular papers, the "Flag of Our
Union," and the "Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion." Others have
appeared in the "New York Mirror," the "American Monthly Magazine,"