f a genteel address, a respectable wardrobe, a few
friends, and--no visible means of support. There are but two ways about
it--take to the highway, or become a Diddler--a sponge--and, like
woodcock, live on "suction." The early part of a Diddler's life is
chiefly spent among the ladies;--they being strongly susceptible of
flattering attentions, especially those of "a nice young man," your
Diddler lives and flourishes among them like a fighting cock. Diddler's
"heyday" being over, he next becomes a politician--an old Hunker;
attends caucusses and conventions, dinners and inaugurations. Never
aspiring to matrimony among the ladies, he remains an "old bach;" never
hoping for office under government, he never gets any; and when, at
last, both youth and energies are wasted, Diddler dons a white
neckcloth, combs his few straggling hairs behind his ears, and, dressed
in a well-brushed but shocking seedy suit of sable, he jines church and
turns "old fogie," carries around the plate, does chores for the parson,
becomes generally useful to the whole congregation, and finally shuffles
off his mortal coil, and ends his eventful and useless life in the most
becoming manner.

Cities are the only fields subservient to the successful practice of a
respectable Diddler. New York affords them a very fair scope for
operation, but of all the American cities, New Orleans is the Diddler's
paradise! The mobile state of society, the fluctuations of men and
business, the impossibility of knowing any thing or any body there for
any considerable period, gives the Diddler ample scope for the exercise
of his peculiar abilities to great effect. He dines almost sumptuously
at the daily lunches set at the splendid drinking saloons and _cafes_,
he lives for a month at a time on the various upward-bound steamboats.
In New Orleans, the departure of a steamer for St. Louis, Cincinnati or
Pittsburg, is announced for such an hour "to-day"--positively; Diddler
knows it's "all a gag" to get passengers and baggage hurried on, and the
steamer keeps _going_ for two to five days before she's gone; so he
comes on board, registers one of his commonplace aliases, gets his
state-room and board among the crowd of _real_ passengers, up to the
hour of the boat's shoving out, then he--slips ashore, and points his
boots to another boat. Many's the Diddler who's passed a whole season
thus, dead-heading it on the steamers of the Crescent City. Sometimes
the Diddler learns ba