y! 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