very tragic character, why, it had work enough on hand for the
present. Blowers was blessed with a wife of a literary turn of mind,
which was very convenient, inasmuch as all the novels with which the
house astonished the world were submitted to her, and what she could
not read she was sure to pass a favorable judgment upon. The house
had in press four highly worked up novels of Mrs. Blowers' own, Mr.
Blowers said,--all written in the very short space of six weeks. She
was a remarkable woman, and extraordinary clever at novels, Blowers
concluded with an air of magnificent self-satisfaction. These works,
having been written by steam, Mr. Windspin, the unior partner, was
expected to put into the market with a very large amount of high
pressure.

Our friends in South Carolina, we knew, would be anxious to see what
we had written of them in this volume, and we have made and shall
continue to make it a point to gratify them: hence our haste in this
instance. Conscious, too, that life is the great schoolmaster, and
that public taste is neither to be regulated by a few, nor kept at
any one point, we caught up a publisher with only one candidate for
the "White House" on his shoulders, and with his assistance, now
respectfully submit this our humble effort.

NEW YORK, Sept., 1856.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.--Tom Swiggs' Seventh Introduction on board of the Brig
Standfast,

CHAPTER II.--Madame Flamingo-Her Distinguished Patrons, and her very