erhaps it would be as well that he should call again.
"By no means!" says the servant; and "By no means!" says the lady's
sister and the lady's sister-in-law, who are summoned forthwith. The
ring is clamorously identified, the reward is paid, and the finder
nearly thrust out of doors. The lady returns and expresses some little
dissatisfaction with her sister and sister-in-law, because they happen
to have paid forty or fifty dollars for a fac-simile of her diamond
ring--a fac-simile made out of real pinch-beck and unquestionable paste.

But as there is really no end to diddling, so there would be none to
this essay, were I even to hint at half the variations, or inflections,
of which this science is susceptible. I must bring this paper, perforce,
to a conclusion, and this I cannot do better than by a summary notice
of a very decent, but rather elaborate diddle, of which our own city was
made the theatre, not very long ago, and which was subsequently repeated
with success, in other still more verdant localities of the Union.
A middle-aged gentleman arrives in town from parts unknown. He is
remarkably precise, cautious, staid, and deliberate in his demeanor. His
dress is scrupulously neat, but plain, unostentatious. He wears a
white cravat, an ample waistcoat, made with an eye to comfort alone;
thick-soled cosy-looking shoes, and pantaloons without straps. He has
the whole air, in fact, of your well-to-do, sober-sided, exact, and
respectable "man of business," Par excellence--one of the stern and
outwardly hard, internally soft, sort of people that we see in the crack
high comedies--fellows whose words are so many bonds, and who are noted
for giving away guineas, in charity, with the one hand, while, in the
way of mere bargain, they exact the uttermost fraction of a farthing
with the other.

He makes much ado before he can get suited with a boarding house. He
dislikes children. He has been accustomed to quiet. His habits are
methodical--and then he would prefer getting into a private and
respectable small family, piously inclined. Terms, however, are no
object--only he must insist upon settling his bill on the first of every
month, (it is now the second) and begs his landlady, when he finally
obtains one to his mind, not on any account to forget his instructions
upon this point--but to send in a bill, and receipt, precisely at ten
o'clock, on the first day of every month, and under no circumstances to
put it off to the se