The Confessions of Artemas Quibble

I was born in the town in Lynn, Massachusetts, upon the twenty-
second day of February, in the year 1855. Unlike most writers of
similar memoirs, I shall cast no aspersions upon the indigent by
stating that my parents were poor but honest. They were poor _and_
honest, as indeed, so far as I have been able to ascertain, have
been all the Quibbles since the founder of the family came over on
the good ship _Susan and Ellen_ in 1635, and, after marrying a
lady's maid who had been his fellow passenger,...