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It is a good rule for the actor who manages the popular street drama of Punch not to let the audience or spectators see his legs.  It is very hard for the writer of papers like these, which are now coming to their conclusion, to keep his personality from showing itself too conspicuously through the thin disguises of his various characters.  As the show is now over, as the curtain has fallen, I appear before it in my proper person, to address a few words to the friends who have assisted, as the French say, by their presence, and as we use the word, by the kind way in which they have received my attempts at their entertainment.

This series of papers is the fourth of its kind which I have offered to my readers.  I may be allowed to look back upon the succession of serial articles which was commenced more than thirty years ago, in 1857.  “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table” was the first of the series.  It was begun without the least idea what was to be its course and its outcome.  Its characters shaped themselves gradually as the manuscript grew under my hand.  I jotted down on the sheet of blotting paper before me the thoughts and fancies which came into my head.  A very odd-looking object was this page of memoranda.  Many of the hints were worked up into formal shape, many were rejected.  Sometimes I recorded a story, a jest, or a pun for consideration, and made use of it or let it alone as my second thought decided.  I remember a curious coincidence, which, if I have ever told in print,—­I am not sure whether I have or not,—­I will tell over again.  I mention it, not for the pun, which I rejected as not very edifying and perhaps not new, though I did not recollect having seen it.

Mulier, Latin for woman; why apply that name to one of the gentle but occasionally obstinate sex?  The answer was that a woman is (sometimes) more mulish than a mule.  Please observe that I did not like the poor pun very well, and thought it rather rude and inelegant.  So I left it on the blotter, where it was standing when one of the next numbers of “Punch” came out and contained that very same pun, which must have been hit upon by some English contributor at just about the same time I fell upon it on this side of the Atlantic.  This fact may be added to the chapter of coincidences which belongs to the first number of this series of papers.

The “Autocrat” had the attraction of novelty, which of course was wanting in the succeeding papers of similar character.  The criticisms upon the successive numbers as they came out were various, but generally encouraging.  Some were more than encouraging; very high-colored in their phrases of commendation.  When the papers were brought together in a volume their success was beyond my expectations.  Up to the present time the “Autocrat” has maintained its position.  An immortality of a whole generation is more than most writers are entitled to expect.  I venture to think, from the letters I receive from