------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE COMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. ---------- PREFATORY. TREATING THE READER TO AN ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR, AND OF THE PLAN, OBJECT, AND PRINCIPLES OF THIS HISTORY. The Author, proposing to be intimate with the Reader, deems an Introduction desirable.—Born Early and Poor.—How the Two Facts were managed and overcome.—School Days and Nights.—College Lines, crooked and straight.—Father’s Face against his.—A New American Decalogue.—Into the Married and other States and Territories.—Settling down.—Advantages of a Sub-urban Residence.—Outside and Inside Views of the Author’s Head.—Plans and Purposes of the Work.—Laughing Facts.—Roman Precedents.—Impartiality holding the Shears and Tape.—Sources of our Information.—Acknowledgments to Smith and Brown.—Our Illustrations. [Illustration: THE READER SCRAPES ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE AUTHOR.] Due it is alike to the originality and dignity of this work, and to the respectability, comfort, and good understanding of the reader and ourself, that a formal introduction should take place at the very outset. For although we feel sure that without this we shall, after keeping company together a few evenings, exchange confidences and hearts with each other for life, yet to avoid needless suspicions,—mute and silent though they be,—and to obviate the hazards and discomforts of injurious side-glances, interrogative of my origin, person, parentage, education, and moral character,—which the _paterfamilias_ may, and naturally would, cast upon a new teacher, who offers to take a place in his household, sit in one corner of the family room when the lamps are lit, and to sleep in the spare bedroom when they are turned down,—I propose to state at once who it is that comes with this friendly audacity, what are his intentions, and how he expects to behave himself in a relation at once so familiar and responsible, viz. that of a good-natured, equable, humorous companion and friend, indicating and painting facts in a pleasant, genial, and healthy way.