against such a consummation. So,
respected reader, whatever liberties we might take with you, we had to
look nearer home, and bethink us of ourselves. _After all_--and what
a glorious charge to the jury of one's conscience is your after
all!---what a plenary indulgence against all your sins of commission
and omission!--what a makepeace to self-accusation, and what a salve to
heartfelt repinings!--after all, we did know a great deal about O'Leary:
his life and opinions, his habits and haunts, his prejudices, pleasures,
and predilections: and although we never performed Boz to his Johnson,
still had we ample knowledge of him for all purposes of book-writing;
and there was no reason why we should not assume his mantle, or rather
his Macintosh, if the weather required it.

Having in some sort allayed our scruples in this fashion, and having
satisfied our conscience by the resolve, that if we were not about to
record the actual _res gesto_ of Mr. O'Leary, neither would we set down
anything which _might not_ have been one of his adventures, nor put
into his mouth any imaginary conversations which _he might not_ have
sustained; so that, in short, should the volume ever come under the eyes
of the respected gentleman himself, considerable mystification would
exist, as to whether he did not say, do, and think, exactly as we made
him, and much doubt lie on his mind that he was not the author himself.

We wish particularly to lay stress on the honesty of these our
intentions--the more, as subsequent events have interfered with their
accomplishment; and we can only assure the world of what we would have
done, had we been permitted. And here let us observe, _en passant_, that
if other literary characters had been actuated by similarly honourable
views, we should have been spared those very absurd speeches which
Sallust attributes to his characters in the Catiline conspiracy; and
another historian, with still greater daring, assumes the Prince of
Orange _ought_ to have spoken, at various epochs in the late Belgian
revolution.

With such prospective hopes, then, did we engage in the mystery of these
same "Loiterings," and with a pleasure such as only men of the pen
can appreciate, did we watch the bulky pile of MS. that was growing up
before us, while the interest of the work had already taken hold of
us; and whether we moved our puppets to the slow figure of a minuet, or
rattled them along at the slap-dash, hurry-scurry, devil-may-c