Excerpt: "Without apology this book goes forth. If it is productive of some good, it will have fulfilled its mission. In presenting this work it is with a feeling of restitution. If I have digressed from, or stormed the barricaded citadel of formal literature, I have done so without hesitation, simply complying with an obeisance to civility toward my fellow men. I have pictured life as a man of the world is sometimes forced to see it, and not altogether as angels would transcribe it. If the manner in which the subjects are hereinafter treated and woven into stories, meets the approval of the public, the work will have served to indicate the power and simplicity of truth.—The Author."