Authors are sometimes sensitive (I believe), about the reception which they, "by their works," may meet with at the hands of the public; and not seldom do they, in more or less ingenious ways, attempt to cajole their readers, through well-studied prefaces, into a prejudicedly favorable mood regarding the body of their books. Perhaps mine is a singularly good fortune, in that my partial and importuning friends before alluded to, have given me consoling courage to "go forward" and publish what they are so kind as to be pleased with, by the assurance that they will take upon themselves, and patiently bear, all the severe criticism, the curses, the wanton blows, etc., which may be aimed at me by "hypercritical critics," or by vexed and wrathful readers; while I shall be left to enjoy, unalloyed, all the "blessings" with which the rest of the public may be pleased to favor me. I regarded this as so excellent an expression of human[e] goodness upon the part of these my friends, that I consented to honor it, by submission to their will. Hence these tales, in their printed form,--designed at first to beguile an hour for particular friends in the reading, as the same had beguiled many long hours for me in the writing,--and not primarily intended to be put into the form of a book. If any good to the world accrues from their publication, through the instruction which they may afford to some, perhaps; or by their possibly enlarging the scope of the reader's charity for the erring, or in any way, I shall be gratified; and so (it _is_ but fair in me to add this, for they are human, and sensitive to the joys which "a good done" brings)--and so, to repeat, will also be my aforesaid partial, good friends. GEORGE S. MCWATTERS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS. -------------- PAGE PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION. 18 =BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES.= =OFFICER GEORGE S. McWATTERS.= PERSONAL DESCRIPTION--ALWAYS TEMPERATE--IN WONDERFUL PRESERVATION--"A GOOD FACE TO LOOK INTO"--NEITHER SCOTCH, IRISH, NOR ENGLISH IN APPEARANCE. 21 =WHERE HE WAS BORN AND REARED.= NO MATTER WHERE A MAN IS BORN--KILMARNOCK, SCOTLAND--NORTH OF IRELAND--AMBITIOUS BOYHOOD--"THE BEAUTIFUL LAND BEYOND THE WESTERN WATERS"--INTENSELY DEMOCRATIC--BECOMES A MECHANIC. 21 =REMOVES TO LONDON.= FOLLOWS HIS TRADE IN LONDON--MARRIES THERE--HIS INTERESTING FAMILY--MISS CHARLOTTE, HIS ELDEST DAUGHTER--HER MARRIAGE--SIGNOR ERRANI. 23 =MIGRATES TO THE UNITED STATES.=