Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870

Buffer is the term used in the English story. Its nearest native equivalent is, probably, our Dead-Beat; meaning, variously, according to circumstances, a successful American politician; a wife's male relative; a watering-place correspondent of a newspaper, a New York detective policeman; any person who is uncommonly pleasant with people, while never asking them to take anything with him; a pious boarder; a French revolutionist.
In both conception and execution, the original of the above Chapter, in Mr. DICKENS's work, is, perhaps, the least felicitous page of fiction ever penned by the great novelist; and, as this Adaptation is in no wise intended as a burlesque, or caricature, of the style at the original, (but rather as a conscientious imitation of it, so far as practicable,) the Adapter has not allowed himself that license of humor which, in the most comically effective treatment of said Chapter, might bear the appearance of such an intention.
GEO. W, WHEAT & Co, PRINTER, NO. 8 SPRUCE STREET.