I cannot recollect the precise day, but it was some time in the month of November 1839, that I took one of my usual rambles without design or destination. I detest a premeditated route--I always grow tired at the first mile; but with a free course, either in town or country, I can saunter about for hours, and feel no other fatigue but what a tumbler of toddy and a pipe can remove. It was this disposition that made me acquainted with the fraternity of the "Puffs." I would premise, gentle reader, that as in my peregrinations I turn down any green lane or dark alley that may excite my admiration or my curiosity--hurry through glittering saloons or crowded streets--pause at the cottage door or shop window, as it best suits my humour, so, in my intercourse with you, I shall digress, speculate, compress, and dilate, as my fancy or my convenience wills it. This is a blunt acknowledgment of my intentions; but as travellers are never sociable till they have cast aside the formalities of compliment, I wished to start with you at the first stage as an old acquaintance. The course is not usual, and, therefore, I adopt it; and it was by thus stepping out of a common street into a common hostel that I became possessed of the _materiel_ of those papers, which I trust will hereafter tend to cheat many into a momentary forgetfulness of some care. I have no other ambition; there are philosophers enough to mystify or enlighten the world without my "nose of Turk and Tartar's lips" being thrust into the cauldron, whose --"Charms of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth, boil and bubble."