matter is carried through with circumspection and dispatch. There
shall not be a blush.

Now, it is our purpose in this advertisement so clearly to give you
the manner of our novel that without further waste of time you may
forego the task of reading so little as a single chapter if you
consider that manner likely to distress you. Hence something must be
said touching the style.

We cannot see (to make a start) that the listener or the reader of a
story should alone have the right to fidget as he listens or reads; to
come and go at his pleasure; to interrupt at his convenience.
Something of these privileges should be shared by the narrator; and in
this history we have taken them. You may swing your legs or divert
your attention as you read; but we too must be permitted to swing our
legs and slide off upon matters that interest us, and that indirectly
are relevant to the history. Life is not compounded solely of action.
One cannot rush breathless from hour to hour. And, since the novel
aims to ape life, the reader, if the aim be true, cannot rush
breathless from page to page. We can at least warrant him he will not
here.

These are the limitations of our history; and we admit them to be
considerable. Upon the other hand, the print is beautifully clear.

* * * * *

As touching the title we have chosen, this was not come by at the cost
of any labour. Taken, as we have told, from that dashing sentiment,
"Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine!" it is a label that might