ends of
a mythical time, I took the liberty to give him a brother, rather
more mythical, whose adventures should be on the seas. I had the
impression that Wilkinson's friend was named Stephen,--and as such
he is spoken of in this story at page 232. But long after this was
printed, I found that the New Orleans paper was right in saying
that the Texan hero was named Philip. I am very sorry that I
changed him inadvertently to Stephen. It is too late for me to
change him back again. I remember to have heard a distinguished
divine preach on St. Philip's day, by accident, a discourse on the
life of the Evangelist Stephen. If such a mistake can happen in the
best regulated of pulpits, I must be pardoned for mistaking Philip
for Stephen Nolan. The reader must observe that he was dead some
years before the action of this story begins. In the same
connection I must add that Mr. P. Nolan, the teamster in Boston,
whose horse and cart I venture to recommend to an indulgent public,
is no relation of the hero of this tale.

If any reader considers the invention of a brother too great a
liberty to take in fiction, I venture to remind him that "'Tis
sixty years since"; and that I should have the highest authority in
literature even for much greater liberties taken with annals so far
removed from our time.

A Boston paper, in noticing the story of "My Double," contained in
another part of this collection, said it was highly _improbable_. I
have always agreed with that critic. I confess I have the same
opinion of the story of Philip Nolan. It passes on ships which had
no existence, is vouched for by officers who never lived. Its hero
is in two or three places at the same time, under a process wholly
impossible under any conceivable administration of affairs. In
reply, therefore, to a kind adviser in Connecticut, who told me
that the story must be apologized for, because it was doing great
injury to the national cause by asserting such continued cruelty of
the Federal Government through a half-century, I must be permitted
to say that the public, being the Supreme Court of the United
States, "may be supposed to know something."]

I suppose that very few casual readers of the New York Herald of August
13th observed, in an obscure corner, among the "Deaths," the
announce