He conquers all by assault. He would
      not fear the daggers of Frey Herren. With a little more prudence
      Dick Turpin would have made a good diddler; with a trifle less
      blarney, Daniel O’Connell; with a pound or two more brains,
      Charles the Twelfth. _Nonchalance:_—Your diddler is nonchalant. He is not at all
      nervous. He never had any nerves. He is never seduced into a
      flurry. He is never put out—unless put out of doors. He is
      cool—cool as a cucumber. He is calm—“calm as a smile from Lady
      Bury.” He is easy—easy as an old glove, or the damsels of ancient
      Baiæ. _Originality:_—Your diddler is original—conscientiously so. His
      thoughts are his own. He would scorn to employ those of another. A stale trick is his aversion. He would return a purse, I am
      sure, upon discovering that he had obtained it by an unoriginal
      diddle. _Impertinence:_—Your diddler is impertinent. He swaggers. He sets
      his arms a-kimbo. He thrusts his hands in his trowsers’ pockets. He sneers in your face. He treads on your corns. He eats your
      dinner, he drinks your wine, he borrows your money, he pulls your
      nose, he kicks your poodle, and he kisses your wife. _Grin:_—Your true diddler winds up all with a grin. But this
      nobody sees but himself. He grins when his daily work is
      done—when his allotted labors are accomplished—at night in his
      own closet, and altogether for his own private entertainment. He
      goes home. He locks his door. He divests himself of his clothes. He puts out his candle. He gets into bed. He places his head upon
      the pillow. All this done, and your diddler grins. This is no
      hypothesis. It is a matter of course. I reason _à priori_, and a
      diddle would be no diddle without a grin. The origin of the diddle is referrable to the infancy of the
      Human Race. Perhaps the first diddler was Adam. At all events, we
      can trace the science back to a very remote period of antiquity. The moderns, however, have brought it to a perfection never
      dreamed of by our thick-headed progenitors. Without pausing to
      speak of the “old saws,” therefore, I shall content myself with a
      compendious account of some of the more “modern instances.”

      A very good diddle is this. A housekeeper in want of a sofa, for
      instance, is seen to go in and out of several cabinet warehouses. At length she arrives at one offering an excellent variety. She
      is accosted, and invited to enter, by a polite and voluble
      individual at the door. She finds a sofa well adapted to her
      views, and upon inquiring the price, is surprised and delighted
      to hear a sum named at least twenty per cent. lower than her
      expectations. She hastens to make the purchase, gets a bill and
      receipt, leaves her address, with a request that the article be
      sent home as speedily as possible, and retires amid a profusion
      of bows from the shopkeeper. The night arrives and no sofa. A
      servant is sent to make inquiry about the delay. The whole
      transaction is denied. No sofa has been sold—no money
      received—except by the diddler, who played shop-keeper for the
      nonce. Our cabinet warehouses are left entirely unattended, and thus
      afford every facility for a trick of this kind. Visitors enter,
      look at furniture, and depart unheeded and unseen. Should any one
      wish to purchase, or to inquire the price of an article, a bell
      is at hand, and this is considered amply sufficient. Again, quite a respectable diddle is this. A well-dressed
      individual enters a shop, makes a purchase to the value of a
      dollar; finds, much to his vexation, that he has left his
      pocket-book in another coat pocket; and so says to the
      shopkeeper—

      “My dear sir, never mind; just oblige me, will you, by sending
      the bundle home? But stay! I really believe that I have nothing
      less than a five dollar bill, even there. However, you can send
      four dollars in change with the bundle, you know.”

      “Very good, sir,” replies the shop-keeper, who entertains, at
      once, a lofty opinion of the high-mindedness of his customer. “I
      know fellows,” he says to himself, “who would just have put the
      goods under their arm, and walked off with a promise to call and
      pay the dollar as they came by in the afternoon.”

      A boy is sent with the parcel and change. On the route, quite
      accidentally, he is met by the purchaser, who exclaims:

      “Ah! This is my bundle, I see—I thought you had been home with
      it, long ago. Well, go on! My wife, Mrs. Trotter, will give you
      the five dollars—I left instructions with her to that effect. The
      change you might as well give to me—I shall want some silver for
      the Post Office. Very good! One, two, is this a good
      quarter?—three, four—quite right! Say to Mrs. Trotter that you
      met me, and be sure now and do not loiter on the way.”

      The boy doesn’t loiter at all—but he is a very long time in
      getting back from his errand—for no lady of the precise name of
      Mrs. Trotter is to be discovered. He consoles himself, however,
      that he has not been such a fool as to leave the goods without
      the money, and re-entering his shop with a self-satisfied air,
      feels sensibly hurt and indignant when his master asks him what
      has become of the change. A very simple diddle, indeed, is this. The captain of a ship,
      which is about to sail, is presented by an official looking
      person with an unusually moderate bill of city charges. Glad to
      get off so easily, and confused by a hundred duties pressing upon
      him all at once, he discharges the claim forthwith. In about
      fifteen minutes, another and less reasonable bill is handed him
      by one who soon makes it evident that the first collector was a
      diddler, and the original collection a diddle. And here, too, is a somewhat similar thing. A steamboat is
      casting loose from the wharf. A traveller, portmanteau in hand,
      is discovered running toward the wharf, at full speed. Suddenly,
      he makes a dead halt, stoops, and picks up something from the
      ground in a very agitated manner. It is a pocket-book, and—“Has
      any gentleman lost a pocketbook?” he cries. No one can say that
      he has exactly lost a pocket-book; but a great excitement ensues,
      when the treasure trove is found to be of value. The boat,
      however, must not be detained. “Time and tide wait for no man,” says the captain. “For God’s sake, stay only a few minutes,” says the finder of the
      book—“the true claimant will presently appear.”

      “Can’t wait!” replies the man in authority; “cast off there, d’ye
      hear?”

      “What _am_ I to do?” asks the finder, in great tribulation.