rt to the little transaction?
Is it possible those diamonds cost a thousand pounds? What a rogue
the fence must have been who only gave him so and so! And I pleasingly
picture to myself an old ex-footman and an ancient receiver of stolen
goods meeting and talking over this matter, which dates from times so
early that her present Majesty's fair image could only just have begun
to be coined or forged.

I choose to take John at the time when his little peccadillo is
suspected, perhaps, but when there is no specific charge of robbery
against him. He is not yet convicted: he is not even on his trial; how
then can we venture to say he is guilty? Now think what scores of men
and women walk the world in a like predicament; and what false coin
passes current! Pinchbeck strives to pass off his history as sound
coin. He knows it is only base metal, washed over with a thin varnish of
learning. Poluphloisbos puts his sermons in circulation: sounding brass,
lacquered over with white metal, and marked with the stamp and image of
piety. What say you to Drawcansir's reputation as a military commander?
to Tibbs's pretensions to be a fine gentleman? to Sapphira's claims as a
poetess, or Rodoessa's as a beauty? His bravery, his piety, high birth,
genius, beauty--each of these deceivers would palm his falsehood on us,
and have us accept his forgeries as sterling coin. And we talk here,
please to observe, of weaknesses rather than crimes. Some of us have
more serious things to hide than a yellow cheek behind a raddle of
rouge, or a white poll under a wig of jetty curls. You know, neighbor,
there are not only false teeth in this world, but false tongues: and
some make up a bust and an appearance of strength with padding, cotton,
and what not? while another kind of artist tries to take you in by
wearing under his waistcoat, and perpetually thumping, an immense sham
heart. Dear sir, may yours and mine be found, at the right time, of the
proper size and in the right place.

And what has this to do with half-crowns, good or bad? Ah, friend! may
our coin, battered, and clipped, and defaced though it be, be proved to
be Sterling Silver on the day of the Great Assay!

"STRANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER."

Before the Duke of York's column, and between the "Athenaeum" and
"United Service" Clubs, I have seen more than once, on the esplanade,
a preacher holding forth to a little congregation of badauds and
street-boys, whom he entertains with a