To your simple question, reader, more simply advanced, she replies coquettishly:  “Now, on my word of honor, Tom Swiggs did that.  And the poor fellow-I call him poor fellow, because, thinking of what he used to be, I can’t help it-has not a cent to pay for his pranks with.  Bless you, (here Madame Flamingo waxes warm,) why I knew Tom Swiggs years ago, when he wasn’t what he is now!  He was as dashing a young buck then as you’d meet in the city; used to come here a perfect gentleman; and I liked him, and he liked me, and he got to liking the house, so you couldn’t, if you had wanted to, have kept him away.  And he always had no end of money, which he used to spend so freely.  Poor fellow! (she sighs and shakes her head,) I confess I used to almost love Tom then.  Then he got to courting a lady-she (Madame corrects herself) wasn’t a lady though, she was only the daughter of a mechanic of small means—­mechanic families have no standing in society, you see-and this cut deep into his mother’s pride.  And she, you see, was not quite sure where she stood in society, you see, and wouldn’t for the world have her pride lessened; so she discarded poor Tom.  And the girl has been got out of the way, and Tom has become penniless, and such a wreck of dissipation that no respectable house will admit him.  It’s a stiff old family, that Swiggs family!  His mother keeps him threading in and out of jail, just to be rid of him.  She is a curious mother; but when I think how he looks and acts, how can I wonder she keeps him in jail?  I had to put him there twice—­I had! (Madame Flamingo becomes emphatic.) But remembering what a friend of the house he used to be, I took pity on him, let him out, and lent him two dollars.  And there’s honor—­I’ve great faith in honor-in Tom, who, I honestly believe, providing the devil do not get him in one of his fits, will pay all damages, notwithstanding I placed the reputation of my house in jeopardy with him a few nights since, was forced to call three policemen to eject him, and resolved that he should not again darken my door.”

CHAPTER III.

In which the reader is presented with A varied picture.

Tom has passed a restless night in jail.  He has dreamed of bottled snakes, with eyes wickedly glaring at him; of fiery-tailed serpents coiling all over him; of devils in shapes he has no language to describe; of the waltz of death, in which he danced at the mansion of Madame Flamingo; and of his mother, (a name ever dear in his thoughts,) who banished him to this region of vice, for what she esteemed a moral infirmity.  Further on in his dream he saw a vision, a horrible vision, which was no less than a dispute for his person between Madame Flamingo, a bishop, and the devil.  But Madame Flamingo and the devil, who seemed to enjoy each other’s company exceedingly, got the better of the bishop, who was scrupulous of