had all its convenient corners very fantastically decorated with large blue placards, whereon was inscribed the loss of his valuable woman, and the offer of the increased sum of four hundred dollars for her apprehension.  The placards were wonderful curiosities, and very characteristic of Blowers, who in this instance excited no small amount of merriment among the city wags, each of whom cracked a joke at his expense.  Now it was not that those waggish spirits said of his placard things exceedingly annoying to his sensitive feelings, but that every prig made him the butt of his borrowed wit.  One quizzed him with want of gallantry,—­another told him what the ladies said of his oss,—­a third pitied him, but hoped he might get back his property; and then, Tom Span, the dandy lawyer, laconically told him that to love a fair slave was a business he must learn over again; and Sprout, the cotton-broker, said there was a law against ornamenting the city with blue placards and type of such uncommon size.  In this interminable perplexity, and to avoid the last-named difficulty, did he invoke the genius of the “bill-sticker,” who obliterated the blue placards by covering them over with brown ones, the performance of which, Blowers himself superintended.  This made the matter still worse, for with jocose smile did every wag say he had hung the city in mourning for his loss; which singular proceeding the ladies had one and all solemnly protested against.  Now, Blowers regard for the ladies was proverbial; nor will it disparage his character to say that no one was more sensitive of their opinions concerning himself.  In this unhappy position, then, which he might have avoided had he exercised more calmly his philosophy, did his perturbation get the better of him;—­an object of ridicule for every wag, and in ill-favour with the very first ladies, never was perplexed man’s temper so near the exploding point of high pressure.  And here, forsooth, disgusted within the whole city, nor at all pleased with the result of his inventive genius, he sought relief in strong drinks and a week of dissipation; in which sad condition we must leave him to the reader’s sympathy.

As some of our fair readers may be a little prudish, or exacting of character, and as we are peculiarly sensitive of the reputation some of the characters embodied in this history should bear to the very end, we deem it prudent here not to disclose the nature of the little forgery which was perpetrated at Blowers’ expense, nor the means by which it was so cleverly carried out, to the release of the fair captives, who must now be got out of the city.  Should we, in the performance of this very desirable duty, fail to please the reader’s taste for hair-breadth escapes, unnatural heroism, and sublime disinterestedness, an excuse may be found in our lack of soul to appreciate those virtues of romance.  We have no taste for breathless suspenses, no love of terror:  we deal not in tragedy, nor traffic in dramatic effects.