Chapter 25 (8)

Meantime the ponderous and terrific Scythe of Time (for I now
discovered the literal import of that classical phrase) had not
stopped, nor was it likely to stop, in its career. Down and still
down, it came. It had already buried its sharp edge a full inch
in my flesh, and my sensations grew indistinct and confused. At
one time I fancied myself in Philadelphia with the stately Dr.
Moneypenny, at another in the back parlor of Mr. Blackwood
receiving his invaluable instructions. And then again the sweet
recollection of better and earlier times came over me, and I
thought of that happy period when the world was not all a desert,
and Pompey not altogether cruel.

The ticking of the machinery amused me. Amused me, I say, for my
sensations now bordered upon perfect happiness, and the most
trifling circumstances afforded me pleasure. The eternal
click-clak, click-clak, click-clak of the clock was the most
melodious of music in my ears, and occasionally even put me in
mind of the graceful sermonic harangues of Dr. Ollapod. Then
there were the great figures upon the dial-plate—how intelligent
how intellectual, they all looked! And presently they took to
dancing the Mazurka, and I think it was the figure V. who
performed the most to my satisfaction. She was evidently a lady
of breeding. None of your swaggerers, and nothing at all
indelicate in her motions. She did the pirouette to
admiration—whirling round upon her apex. I made an endeavor to
hand her a chair, for I saw that she appeared fatigued with her
exertions—and it was not until then that I fully perceived my
lamentable situation. Lamentable indeed! The bar had buried
itself two inches in my neck. I was aroused to a sense of
exquisite pain. I prayed for death, and, in the agony of the
moment, could not help repeating those exquisite verses of the
poet Miguel De Cervantes:

Vanny Buren, tan escondida
Query no te senty venny
Pork and pleasure, delly morry
Nommy, torny, darry, widdy!

But now a new horror presented itself, and one indeed sufficient
to startle the strongest nerves. My eyes, from the cruel pressure
of the machine, were absolutely starting from their sockets.
While I was thinking how I should possibly manage without them,
one actually tumbled out of my head, and, rolling down the steep
side of the steeple, lodged in the rain gutter which ran along
the eaves of the main building. The loss of the eye was not so
much as the insolent air of independence and contempt with which
it regarded me after it was out. There it lay in the gutter just
under my nose, and the airs it gave itself would have been
ridiculous had they not been disgusting. Such a winking and
blinking were never before seen. This behavior on the part of my
eye in the gutter was not only irritating on account of its
manifest insolence and shameful ingratitude, but was also
exceedingly inconvenient on account of the sympathy which always
exists between two eyes of the same head, however far apart. I
was forced, in a manner, to wink and to blink, whether I would or
not, in exact concert with the scoundrelly thing that lay just
under my nose. I was presently relieved, however, by the dropping
out of the other eye. In falling it took the same direction
(possibly a concerted plot) as its fellow. Both rolled out of the
gutter together, and in truth I was very glad to get rid of them.

The bar was now four inches and a half deep in my neck, and there
was only a little bit of skin to cut through. My sensations were
those of entire happiness, for I felt that in a few minutes, at
farthest, I should be relieved from my disagreeable situation.
And in this expectation I was not at all deceived. At twenty-five
minutes past five in the afternoon, precisely, the huge
minute-hand had proceeded sufficiently far on its terrible
revolution to sever the small remainder of my neck. I was not
sorry to see the head which had occasioned me so much
embarrassment at length make a final separation from my body. It
first rolled down the side of the steeple, then lodge, for a few
seconds, in the gutter, and then made its way, with a plunge,
into the middle of the street.

I will candidly confess that my feelings were now of the most
singular—nay, of the most mysterious, the most perplexing and
incomprehensible character. My senses were here and there at one
and the same moment. With my head I imagined, at one time, that
I, the head, was the real Signora Psyche Zenobia—at another I
felt convinced that myself, the body, was the proper identity. To
clear my ideas on this topic I felt in my pocket for my
snuff-box, but, upon getting it, and endeavoring to apply a pinch
of its grateful contents in the ordinary manner, I became
immediately aware of my peculiar deficiency, and threw the box at
once down to my head. It took a pinch with great satisfaction,
and smiled me an acknowledgement in return. Shortly afterward it
made me a speech, which I could hear but indistinctly without
ears. I gathered enough, however, to know that it was astonished
at my wishing to remain alive under such circumstances. In the
concluding sentences it quoted the noble words of Ariosto—

Il pover hommy che non sera corty
And have a combat tenty erry morty;

thus comparing me to the hero who, in the heat of the combat, not
perceiving that he was dead, continued to contest the battle with
inextinguishable valor. There was nothing now to prevent my
getting down from my elevation, and I did so. What it was that
Pompey saw so very peculiar in my appearance I have never yet
been able to find out. The fellow opened his mouth from ear to
ear, and shut his two eyes as if he were endeavoring to crack
nuts between the lids. Finally, throwing off his overcoat, he
made one spring for the staircase and disappeared. I hurled after
the scoundrel these vehement words of Demosthenes—

Andrew O’Phlegethon, you really make haste to fly,

and then turned to the darling of my heart, to the one-eyed! the
shaggy-haired Diana. Alas! what a horrible vision affronted my
eyes? Was that a rat I saw skulking into his hole? Are these the
picked bones of the little angel who has been cruelly devoured by
the monster? Ye gods! and what do I behold—is that the departed
spirit, the shade, the ghost, of my beloved puppy, which I
perceive sitting with a grace so melancholy, in the corner?
Hearken! for she speaks, and, heavens! it is in the German of
Schiller—

“Unt stubby duk, so stubby dun
Duk she! duk she!”

Alas! and are not her words too true?

“And if I died, at least I died
For thee—for thee.”

Sweet creature! she too has sacrificed herself in my behalf.
Dogless, niggerless, headless, what now remains for the unhappy
Signora Psyche Zenobia? Alas—nothing! I have done.

MYSTIFICATION

Slid, if these be your “passados” and “montantes,” I’ll have none
o’ them.
—NED KNOWLES.

The Baron Ritzner von Jung was a noble Hungarian family, every
member of which (at least as far back into antiquity as any
certain records extend) was more or less remarkable for talent of
some description—the majority for that species of _grotesquerie_
in conception of which Tieck, a scion of the house, has given a
vivid, although by no means the most vivid exemplifications. My
acquaintance with Ritzner commenced at the magnificent Chateau
Jung, into which a train of droll adventures, not to be made
public, threw me during the summer months of the year 18—. Here
it was that I obtained a place in his regard, and here, with
somewhat more difficulty, a partial insight into his mental
conformation. In later days this insight grew more clear, as the
intimacy which had at first permitted it became more close; and
when, after three years separation, we met at G——n, I knew all
that it was necessary to know of the character of the Baron
Ritzner von Jung.

I remember the buzz of curiosity which his advent excited within
the college precincts on the night of the twenty-fifth of June. I
remember still more distinctly, that while he was pronounced by
all parties at first sight “the most remarkable man in the
world,” no person made any attempt at accounting for his opinion.
That he was unique appeared so undeniable, that it was deemed
impertinent to inquire wherein the uniquity consisted. But,
letting this matter pass for the present, I will merely observe
that, from the first moment of his setting foot within the limits
of the university, he began to exercise over the habits, manners,
persons, purses, and propensities of the whole community which
surrounded him, an influence the most extensive and despotic, yet
at the same time the most indefinite and altogether
unaccountable. Thus the brief period of his residence at the
university forms an era in its annals, and is characterized by
all classes of people appertaining to it or its dependencies as
“that very extraordinary epoch forming the domination of the
Baron Ritzner von Jung.”

Upon his advent to G——n, he sought me out in my apartments. He
was then of no particular age, by which I mean that it was
impossible to form a guess respecting his age by any data
personally afforded. He might have been fifteen or fifty, and was
twenty-one years and seven months. He was by no means a handsome
man—perhaps the reverse. The contour of his face was somewhat
angular and harsh. His forehead was lofty and very fair; his nose
a snub; his eyes large, heavy, glassy, and meaningless. About the
mouth there was more to be observed. The lips were gently
protruded, and rested the one upon the other, after such a
fashion that it is impossible to conceive any, even the most
complex, combination of human features, conveying so entirely,
and so singly, the idea of unmitigated gravity, solemnity and
repose.

It will be perceived, no doubt, from what I have already said,
that the Baron was one of those human anomalies now and then to
be found, who make the science of mystification the study and the
business of their lives. For this science a peculiar turn of mind
gave him instinctively the cue, while his physical appearance
afforded him unusual facilities for carrying his prospects into
effect. I firmly believe that no student at G——n, during that
renowned epoch so quaintly termed the domination of the Baron
Ritzner von Jung, ever rightly entered into the mystery which
overshadowed his character. I truly think that no person at the
university, with the exception of myself, ever suspected him to
be capable of a joke, verbal or practical:—the old bull-dog at
the garden-gate would sooner have been accused,—the ghost of
Heraclitus,—or the wig of the Emeritus Professor of Theology.
This, too, when it was evident that the most egregious and
unpardonable of all conceivable tricks, whimsicalities and
buffooneries were brought about, if not directly by him, at least
plainly through his intermediate agency or connivance. The
beauty, if I may so call it, of his art mystifique, lay in that
consummate ability (resulting from an almost intuitive knowledge
of human nature, and a most wonderful self-possession,) by means
of which he never failed to make it appear that the drolleries he
was occupied in bringing to a point, arose partly in spite, and
partly in consequence of the laudable efforts he was making for
their prevention, and for the preservation of the good order and
dignity of Alma Mater. The deep, the poignant, the overwhelming
mortification, which upon each such failure of his praise worthy
endeavors, would suffuse every lineament of his countenance, left
not the slightest room for doubt of his sincerity in the bosoms
of even his most skeptical companions. The adroitness, too, was
no less worthy of observation by which he contrived to shift the
sense of the grotesque from the creator to the created—from his
own person to the absurdities to which he had given rise. In no
instance before that of which I speak, have I known the habitual
mystific escape the natural consequence of his manoevres—an
attachment of the ludicrous to his own character and person.
Continually enveloped in an atmosphere of whim, my friend
appeared to live only for the severities of society; and not even
his own household have for a moment associated other ideas than
those of the rigid and august with the memory of the Baron
Ritzner von Jung.

During the epoch of his residence at G——n it really appeared that
the demon of the _dolce far niente_ lay like an incubus upon the
university. Nothing, at least, was done beyond eating and
drinking and making merry. The apartments of the students were
converted into so many pot-houses, and there was no pot-house of
them all more famous or more frequented than that of the Baron.
Our carousals here were many, and boisterous, and long, and never
unfruitful of events.

Upon one occasion we had protracted our sitting until nearly
daybreak, and an unusual quantity of wine had been drunk. The
company consisted of seven or eight individuals besides the Baron
and myself. Most of these were young men of wealth, of high
connection, of great family pride, and all alive with an
exaggerated sense of honor. They abounded in the most ultra
German opinions respecting the duello. To these Quixotic notions
some recent Parisian publications, backed by three or four
desperate and fatal rencounters at G——n, had given new vigor and
impulse; and thus the conversation, during the greater part of
the night, had run wild upon the all-engrossing topic of the
times. The Baron, who had been unusually silent and abstracted in
the earlier portion of the evening, at length seemed to be
aroused from his apathy, took a leading part in the discourse,
and dwelt upon the benefits, and more especially upon the
beauties, of the received code of etiquette in passages of arms
with an ardor, an eloquence, an impressiveness, and an
affectionateness of manner, which elicited the warmest enthusiasm
from his hearers in general, and absolutely staggered even
myself, who well knew him to be at heart a ridiculer of those
very points for which he contended, and especially to hold the
entire fanfaronade of duelling etiquette in the sovereign
contempt which it deserves.

Looking around me during a pause in the Baron’s discourse (of
which my readers may gather some faint idea when I say that it
bore resemblance to the fervid, chanting, monotonous, yet musical
sermonic manner of Coleridge), I perceived symptoms of even more
than the general interest in the countenance of one of the party.
This gentleman, whom I shall call Hermann, was an original in
every respect—except, perhaps, in the single particular that he
was a very great fool. He contrived to bear, however, among a
particular set at the university, a reputation for deep
metaphysical thinking, and, I believe, for some logical talent.
As a duellist he had acquired great renown, even at G——n. I
forget the precise number of victims who had fallen at his hands;
but they were many. He was a man of courage undoubtedly. But it
was upon his minute acquaintance with the etiquette of the
duello, and the nicety of his sense of honor, that he most
especially prided himself. These things were a hobby which he
rode to the death. To Ritzner, ever upon the lookout for the
grotesque, his peculiarities had for a long time past afforded
food for mystification. Of this, however, I was not aware;
although, in the present instance, I saw clearly that something
of a whimsical nature was upon the tapis with my friend, and that
Hermann was its especial object.

As the former proceeded in his discourse, or rather monologue, I
perceived the excitement of the latter momently increasing. At
length he spoke; offering some objection to a point insisted upon
by R., and giving his reasons in detail. To these the Baron
replied at length (still maintaining his exaggerated tone of
sentiment) and concluding, in what I thought very bad taste, with
a sarcasm and a sneer. The hobby of Hermann now took the bit in
his teeth. This I could discern by the studied hair-splitting
farrago of his rejoinder. His last words I distinctly remember.
“Your opinions, allow me to say, Baron von Jung, although in the
main correct, are, in many nice points, discreditable to yourself
and to the university of which you are a member. In a few
respects they are even unworthy of serious refutation. I would
say more than this, sir, were it not for the fear of giving you
offence (here the speaker smiled blandly), I would say, sir, that
your opinions are not the opinions to be expected from a
gentleman.”

As Hermann completed this equivocal sentence, all eyes were
turned upon the Baron. He became pale, then excessively red;
then, dropping his pocket-handkerchief, stooped to recover it,
when I caught a glimpse of his countenance, while it could be
seen by no one else at the table. It was radiant with the
quizzical expression which was its natural character, but which I
had never seen it assume except when we were alone together, and
when he unbent himself freely. In an instant afterward he stood
erect, confronting Hermann; and so total an alteration of
countenance in so short a period I certainly never saw before.
For a moment I even fancied that I had misconceived him, and that
he was in sober earnest. He appeared to be stifling with passion,
and his face was cadaverously white. For a short time he remained
silent, apparently striving to master his emotion. Having at
length seemingly succeeded, he reached a decanter which stood
near him, saying as he held it firmly clenched—“The language you
have thought proper to employ, Mynheer Hermann, in addressing
yourself to me, is objectionable in so many particulars, that I
have neither temper nor time for specification. That my opinions,
however, are not the opinions to be expected from a gentleman, is
an observation so directly offensive as to allow me but one line
of conduct. Some courtesy, nevertheless, is due to the presence
of this company, and to yourself, at this moment, as my guest.
You will pardon me, therefore, if, upon this consideration, I
deviate slightly from the general usage among gentlemen in
similar cases of personal affront. You will forgive me for the
moderate tax I shall make upon your imagination, and endeavor to
consider, for an instant, the reflection of your person in yonder
mirror as the living Mynheer Hermann himself. This being done,
there will be no difficulty whatever. I shall discharge this
decanter of wine at your image in yonder mirror, and thus fulfil
all the spirit, if not the exact letter, of resentment for your
insult, while the necessity of physical violence to your real
person will be obviated.”

With these words he hurled the decanter, full of wine, against
the mirror which hung directly opposite Hermann; striking the
reflection of his person with great precision, and of course
shattering the glass into fragments. The whole company at once
started to their feet, and, with the exception of myself and
Ritzner, took their departure. As Hermann went out, the Baron
whispered me that I should follow him and make an offer of my
services. To this I agreed; not knowing precisely what to make of
so ridiculous a piece of business.

The duellist accepted my aid with his stiff and _ultra recherché_
air, and, taking my arm, led me to his apartment. I could hardly
forbear laughing in his face while he proceeded to discuss, with
the profoundest gravity, what he termed “the refinedly peculiar
character” of the insult he had received. After a tiresome
harangue in his ordinary style, he took down from his book
shelves a number of musty volumes on the subject of the duello,
and entertained me for a long time with their contents; reading
aloud, and commenting earnestly as he read. I can just remember
the titles of some of the works. There were the “Ordonnance of
Philip le Bel on Single Combat”; the “Theatre of Honor,” by
Favyn, and a treatise “On the Permission of Duels,” by Andiguier.
He displayed, also, with much pomposity, Brantome’s “Memoirs of
Duels,” published at Cologne, 1666, in the types of Elzevir—a
precious and unique vellum-paper volume, with a fine margin, and
bound by Derome. But he requested my attention particularly, and
with an air of mysterious sagacity, to a thick octavo, written in
barbarous Latin by one Hedelin, a Frenchman, and having the
quaint title, “Duelli Lex Scripta, et non; aliterque.” From this
he read me one of the drollest chapters in the world concerning
“Injuriae per applicationem, per constructionem, et per se,”
about half of which, he averred, was strictly applicable to his
own “refinedly peculiar” case, although not one syllable of the
whole matter could I understand for the life of me. Having
finished the chapter, he closed the book, and demanded what I
thought necessary to be done. I replied that I had entire
confidence in his superior delicacy of feeling, and would abide
by what he proposed. With this answer he seemed flattered, and
sat down to write a note to the Baron. It ran thus:

Sir,—My friend, M. P.-, will hand you this note. I find it
incumbent upon me to request, at your earliest convenience, an
explanation of this evening’s occurrences at your chambers. In
the event of your declining this request, Mr. P. will be happy to
arrange, with any friend whom you may appoint, the steps
preliminary to a meeting.

With sentiments of perfect respect,

Your most humble servant,
JOHANN HERMAN.

“_To the Baron Ritzner von Jung,
August 18th, 18_—.”

Not knowing what better to do, I called upon Ritzner with this
epistle. He bowed as I presented it; then, with a grave
countenance, motioned me to a seat. Having perused the cartel, he
wrote the following reply, which I carried to Hermann.

“SIR,—Through our common friend, Mr. P., I have received your
note of this evening. Upon due reflection I frankly admit the
propriety of the explanation you suggest. This being admitted, I
still find great difficulty, (owing to the refinedly peculiar
nature of our disagreement, and of the personal affront offered
on my part,) in so wording what I have to say by way of apology,
as to meet all the minute exigencies, and all the variable
shadows, of the case. I have great reliance, however, on that
extreme delicacy of discrimination, in matters appertaining to
the rules of etiquette, for which you have been so long and so
pre-eminently distinguished. With perfect certainty, therefore,
of being comprehended, I beg leave, in lieu of offering any
sentiments of my own, to refer you to the opinions of Sieur
Hedelin, as set forth in the ninth paragraph of the chapter of
“_Injuriae per applicationem, per constructionem, et per se_,” in
his “_Duelli Lex scripta, et non; aliterque_.” The nicety of your
discernment in all the matters here treated, will be sufficient,
I am assured, to convince you _that the mere circumstance of me
referring you_ to this admirable passage, ought to satisfy your
request, as a man of honor, for explanation.

“With sentiments of profound respect,

“Your most obedient servant,
“VON JUNG.”

“The Herr Johann Hermann,
August 18th, 18—”

Hermann commenced the perusal of this epistle with a scowl,
which, however, was converted into a smile of the most ludicrous
self-complacency as he came to the rigmarole about Injuriae per
applicationem, per constructionem, et per se. Having finished
reading, he begged me, with the blandest of all possible smiles,
to be seated, while he made reference to the treatise in
question. Turning to the passage specified, he read it with great
care to himself, then closed the book, and desired me, in my
character of confidential acquaintance, to express to the Baron
von Jung his exalted sense of his chivalrous behavior, and, in
that of second, to assure him that the explanation offered was of
the fullest, the most honorable, and the most unequivocally
satisfactory nature.

Somewhat amazed at all this, I made my retreat to the Baron. He
seemed to receive Hermann’s amicable letter as a matter of
course, and after a few words of general conversation, went to an
inner room and brought out the everlasting treatise “_Duelli Lex
scripta, et non; aliterque_.” He handed me the volume and asked
me to look over some portion of it. I did so, but to little
purpose, not being able to gather the least particle of meaning.
He then took the book himself, and read me a chapter aloud. To my
surprise, what he read proved to be a most horribly absurd
account of a duel between two baboons. He now explained the
mystery; showing that the volume, as it appeared _prima facie_,
was written upon the plan of the nonsense verses of Du Bartas;
that is to say, the language was ingeniously framed so as to
present to the ear all the outward signs of intelligibility, and
even of profundity, while in fact not a shadow of meaning
existed. The key to the whole was found in leaving out every
second and third word alternately, when there appeared a series
of ludicrous quizzes upon a single combat as practised in modern
times.

The Baron afterwards informed me that he had purposely thrown the
treatise in Hermann’s way two or three weeks before the
adventure, and that he was satisfied, from the general tenor of
his conversation, that he had studied it with the deepest
attention, and firmly believed it to be a work of unusual merit.
Upon this hint he proceeded. Hermann would have died a thousand
deaths rather than acknowledge his inability to understand
anything and everything in the universe that had ever been
written about the _duello_.

DIDDLING

CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE EXACT SCIENCES.

Hey, diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle

Since the world began there have been two Jeremys. The one wrote
a Jeremiad about usury, and was called Jeremy Bentham. He has
been much admired by Mr. John Neal, and was a great man in a
small way. The other gave name to the most important of the Exact
Sciences, and was a great man in a great way—I may say, indeed,
in the very greatest of ways.

Diddling—or the abstract idea conveyed by the verb to diddle—is
sufficiently well understood. Yet the fact, the deed, the thing
_diddling_, is somewhat difficult to define. We may get, however,
at a tolerably distinct conception of the matter in hand, by
defining—not the thing, diddling, in itself—but man, as an animal
that diddles. Had Plato but hit upon this, he would have been
spared the affront of the picked chicken.

Very pertinently it was demanded of Plato, why a picked chicken,
which was clearly “a biped without feathers,” was not, according
to his own definition, a man? But I am not to be bothered by any
similar query. Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no
animal that diddles but man. It will take an entire hen-coop of
picked chickens to get over that.

What constitutes the essence, the nare, the principle of diddling
is, in fact, peculiar to the class of creatures that wear coats
and pantaloons. A crow thieves; a fox cheats; a weasel outwits; a
man diddles. To diddle is his destiny. “Man was made to mourn,”
says the poet. But not so:—he was made to diddle. This is his
aim—his object—his end. And for this reason when a man’s diddled
we say he’s “_done_.”

Diddling, rightly considered, is a compound, of which the
ingredients are minuteness, interest, perseverance, ingenuity,
audacity, _nonchalance_, originality, impertinence, and grin.

_Minuteness:_—Your diddler is minute. His operations are upon a
small scale. His business is retail, for cash, or approved paper
at sight. Should he ever be tempted into magnificent speculation,
he then, at once, loses his distinctive features, and becomes
what we term “financier.” This latter word conveys the diddling
idea in every respect except that of magnitude. A diddler may
thus be regarded as a banker _in petto_—a “financial operation,”
as a diddle at Brobdignag. The one is to the other, as Homer to
“Flaccus”—as a Mastodon to a mouse—as the tail of a comet to that
of a pig.

_Interest:_—Your diddler is guided by self-interest. He scorns to
diddle for the mere _sake_ of the diddle. He has an object in
view—his pocket—and yours. He regards always the main chance. He
looks to Number One. You are Number Two, and must look to
yourself.

_Perseverance:_—Your diddler perseveres. He is not readily
discouraged. Should even the banks break, he cares nothing about
it. He steadily pursues his end, and

‘Ut canis a corio nunquam absterrebitur uncto,’

so he never lets go of his game.

_Ingenuity:_—Your diddler is ingenious. He has constructiveness
large. He understands plot. He invents and circumvents. Were he
not Alexander he would be Diogenes. Were he not a diddler, he
would be a maker of patent rat-traps or an angler for trout.

_Audacity:_—Your diddler is audacious.—He is a bold man. He
carries the war into Africa. 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. “I am
about to leave the country for some years, and I cannot
conscientiously retain this large amount in my possession. I beg
your pardon, sir,” [here he addresses a gentleman on shore,] “but
you have the air of an honest man. _Will_ you confer upon me the
favor of taking charge of this pocket-book—I _know_ I can trust
you—and of advertising it? The notes, you see, amount to a very
considerable sum. The owner will, no doubt, insist upon rewarding
you for your trouble—”

“_Me!_—no, _you!_—it was you who found the book.”

“Well, if you _must_ have it so—_I_ will take a small reward—just
to satisfy your scruples. Let me see—why these notes are all
hundreds—bless my soul! a hundred is too much to take—fifty would
be quite enough, I am sure—”

“Cast off there!” says the captain.

“But then I have no change for a hundred, and upon the whole,
_you_ had better—”

“Cast off there!” says the captain.

“Never mind!” cries the gentleman on shore, who has been
examining his own pocket-book for the last minute or so—“never
mind! _I_ can fix it—here is a fifty on the Bank of North
America—throw the book.”

And the over-conscientious finder takes the fifty with marked
reluctance, and throws the gentleman the book, as desired, while
the steamboat fumes and fizzes on her way. In about half an hour
after her departure, the “large amount” is seen to be a
“counterfeit presentment,” and the whole thing a capital diddle.

A bold diddle is this. A camp-meeting, or something similar, is
to be held at a certain spot which is accessible only by means of
a free bridge. A diddler stations himself upon this bridge,
respectfully informs all passers by of the new county law, which
establishes a toll of one cent for foot passengers, two for
horses and donkeys, and so forth, and so forth. Some grumble but
all submit, and the diddler goes home a wealthier man by some
fifty or sixty dollars well earned. This taking a toll from a
great crowd of people is an excessively troublesome thing.

A neat diddle is this. A friend holds one of the diddler’s
promises to pay, filled up and signed in due form, upon the
ordinary blanks printed in red ink. The diddler purchases one or
two dozen of these blanks, and every day dips one of them in his
soup, makes his dog jump for it, and finally gives it to him as a
bonne bouche. The note arriving at maturity, the diddler, with
the diddler’s dog, calls upon the friend, and the promise to pay
is made the topic of discussion. The friend produces it from his
escritoire, and is in the act of reaching it to the diddler, when
up jumps the diddler’s dog and devours it forthwith. The diddler
is not only surprised but vexed and incensed at the absurd
behavior of his dog, and expresses his entire readiness to cancel
the obligation at any moment when the evidence of the obligation
shall be forthcoming.

A very mean diddle is this. A lady is insulted in the street by a
diddler’s accomplice. The diddler himself flies to her
assistance, and, giving his friend a comfortable thrashing,
insists upon attending the lady to her own door. He bows, with
his hand upon his heart, and most respectfully bids her adieu.
She entreats him, as her deliverer, to walk in and be introduced
to her big brother and her papa. With a sigh, he declines to do
so. “Is there no way, then, sir,” she murmurs, “in which I may be
permitted to testify my gratitude?”

“Why, yes, madam, there is. Will you be kind enough to lend me a
couple of shillings?”

In the first excitement of the moment the lady decides upon
fainting outright. Upon second thought, however, she opens her
purse-strings and delivers the specie. Now this, I say, is a
diddle minute—for one entire moiety of the sum borrowed has to be
paid to the gentleman who had the trouble of performing the
insult, and who had then to stand still and be thrashed for
performing it.

Rather a small but still a scientific diddle is this. The diddler
approaches the bar of a tavern, and demands a couple of twists of
tobacco. These are handed to him, when, having slightly examined
them, he says:

“I don’t much like this tobacco. Here, take it back, and give me
a glass of brandy and water in its place.” The brandy and water
is furnished and imbibed, and the diddler makes his way to the
door. But the voice of the tavern-keeper arrests him.

“I believe, sir, you have forgotten to pay for your brandy and
water.”

“Pay for my brandy and water!—didn’t I give you the tobacco for
the brandy and water? What more would you have?”

“But, sir, if you please, I don’t remember that you paid me for
the tobacco.”

“What do you mean by that, you scoundrel?—Didn’t I give you back
your tobacco? Isn’t that your tobacco lying there? Do you expect
me to pay for what I did not take?”

“But, sir,” says the publican, now rather at a loss what to say,
“but sir—”

“But me no buts, sir,” interrupts the diddler, apparently in very
high dudgeon, and slamming the door after him, as he makes his
escape.—“But me no buts, sir, and none of your tricks upon
travellers.”

Here again is a very clever diddle, of which the simplicity is
not its least recommendation. A purse, or pocket-book, being
really lost, the loser inserts in one of the daily papers of a
large city a fully descriptive advertisement.

Whereupon our diddler copies the facts of this advertisement,
with a change of heading, of general phraseology and address. The
original, for instance, is long, and verbose, is headed “A
Pocket-Book Lost!” and requires the treasure, when found, to be
left at No. 1 Tom Street. The copy is brief, and being headed
with “Lost” only, indicates No. 2 Dick, or No. 3 Harry Street, as
the locality at which the owner may be seen. Moreover, it is
inserted in at least five or six of the daily papers of the day,
while in point of time, it makes its appearance only a few hours
after the original. Should it be read by the loser of the purse,
he would hardly suspect it to have any reference to his own
misfortune. But, of course, the chances are five or six to one,
that the finder will repair to the address given by the diddler,
rather than to that pointed out by the rightful proprietor. The
former pays the reward, pockets the treasure and decamps.

Quite an analogous diddle is this. A lady of ton has dropped,
some where in the street, a diamond ring of very unusual value.
For its recovery, she offers some forty or fifty dollars
reward—giving, in her advertisement, a very minute description of
the gem, and of its settings, and declaring that, on its
restoration at No. so and so, in such and such Avenue, the reward
would be paid instanter, without a single question being asked.
During the lady’s absence from home, a day or two afterwards, a
ring is heard at the door of No. so and so, in such and such
Avenue; a servant appears; the lady of the house is asked for and
is declared to be out, at which astounding information, the
visitor expresses the most poignant regret. His business is of
importance and concerns the lady herself. In fact, he had the
good fortune to find her diamond ring. But perhaps 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
second.

These arrangements made, our man of business rents an office in a
reputable rather than a fashionable quarter of the town. There is
nothing he more despises than pretense. “Where there is much
show,” he says, “there is seldom any thing very solid behind”—an
observation which so profoundly impresses his landlady’s fancy,
that she makes a pencil memorandum of it forthwith, in her great
family Bible, on the broad margin of the Proverbs of Solomon.

The next step is to advertise, after some such fashion as this,
in the principal business six-pennies of the city—the pennies are
eschewed as not “respectable”—and as demanding payment for all
advertisements in advance. Our man of business holds it as a
point of his faith that work should never be paid for until done.

“WANTED.—The advertisers, being about to commence extensive
business operations in this city, will require the services of
three or four intelligent and competent clerks, to whom a liberal
salary will be paid. The very best recommendations, not so much
for capacity, as for integrity, will be expected. Indeed, as the
duties to be performed involve high responsibilities, and large
amounts of money must necessarily pass through the hands of those
engaged, it is deemed advisable to demand a deposit of fifty
dollars from each clerk employed. No person need apply,
therefore, who is not prepared to leave this sum in the
possession of the advertisers, and who cannot furnish the most
satisfactory testimonials of morality. Young gentlemen piously
inclined will be preferred. Application should be made between
the hours of ten and eleven A. M., and four and five P. M., of
Messrs.

“Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs & Co.,
“No. 110 Dog Street.”

By the thirty-first day of the month, this advertisement has
brought to the office of Messrs. Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs, and
Company, some fifteen or twenty young gentlemen piously inclined.
But our man of business is in no hurry to conclude a contract
with any—no man of business is ever precipitate—and it is not
until the most rigid catechism in respect to the piety of each
young gentleman’s inclination, that his services are engaged and
his fifty dollars receipted for, just by way of proper
precaution, on the part of the respectable firm of Bogs, Hogs,
Logs, Frogs, and Company. On the morning of the first day of the
next month, the landlady does not present her bill, according to
promise—a piece of neglect for which the comfortable head of the
house ending in ogs would no doubt have chided her severely,
could he have been prevailed upon to remain in town a day or two
for that purpose.

As it is, the constables have had a sad time of it, running
hither and thither, and all they can do is to declare the man of
business most emphatically, a “hen knee high”—by which some
persons imagine them to imply that, in fact, he is n. e. i.—by
which again the very classical phrase _non est inventus_, is
supposed to be understood. In the meantime the young gentlemen,
one and all, are somewhat less piously inclined than before,
while the landlady purchases a shilling’s worth of the Indian
rubber, and very carefully obliterates the pencil memorandum that
some fool has made in her great family Bible, on the broad margin
of the Proverbs of Solomon.

THE ANGEL OF THE ODD

AN EXTRAVAGANZA.

It was a chilly November afternoon. I had just consummated an
unusually hearty dinner, of which the dyspeptic _truffe_ formed
not the least important item, and was sitting alone in the
dining-room, with my feet upon the fender, and at my elbow a
small table which I had rolled up to the fire, and upon which
were some apologies for dessert, with some miscellaneous bottles
of wine, spirit and _liqueur_. In the morning I had been reading
Glover’s “Leonidas,” Wilkie’s “Epigoniad,” Lamartine’s
“Pilgrimage,” Barlow’s “Columbiad,” Tuckermann’s “Sicily,” and
Griswold’s “Curiosities”; I am willing to confess, therefore,
that I now felt a little stupid. I made effort to arouse myself
by aid of frequent Lafitte, and, all failing, I betook myself to
a stray newspaper in despair. Having carefully perused the column
of “houses to let,” and the column of “dogs lost,” and then the
two columns of “wives and apprentices runaway,” I attacked with
great resolution the editorial matter, and, reading it from
beginning to end without understanding a syllable, conceived the
possibility of its being Chinese, and so re-read it from the end
to the beginning, but with no more satisfactory result. I was
about throwing away, in disgust,

“This folio of four pages, happy work
Which not even critics criticise,”

when I felt my attention somewhat aroused by the paragraph which
follows:

“The avenues to death are numerous and strange. A London paper
mentions the decease of a person from a singular cause. He was
playing at ‘puff the dart,’ which is played with a long needle
inserted in some worsted, and blown at a target through a tin
tube. He placed the needle at the wrong end of the tube, and
drawing his breath strongly to puff the dart forward with force,
drew the needle into his throat. It entered the lungs, and in a
few days killed him.”

Upon seeing this I fell into a great rage, without exactly
knowing why. “This thing,” I exclaimed, “is a contemptible
falsehood—a poor hoax—the lees of the invention of some pitiable
penny-a-liner—of some wretched concoctor of accidents in
Cocaigne. These fellows, knowing the extravagant gullibility of
the age, set their wits to work in the imagination of improbable
possibilities—-of odd accidents, as they term them; but to a
reflecting intellect (like mine,” I added, in parenthesis,
putting my forefinger unconsciously to the side of my nose,) “to
a contemplative understanding such as I myself possess, it seems
evident at once that the marvelous increase of late in these ‘odd
accidents’ is by far the oddest accident of all. For my own part,
I intend to believe nothing henceforward that has anything of the
‘singular’ about it.”

“Mein Gott, den, vat a vool you bees for dat!” replied one of the
most remarkable voices I ever heard. At first I took it for a
rumbling in my ears—such as a man sometimes experiences when
getting very drunk—but, upon second thought, I considered the
sound as more nearly resembling that which proceeds from an empty
barrel beaten with a big stick; and, in fact, this I should have
concluded it to be, but for the articulation of the syllables and
words. I am by no means naturally nervous, and the very few
glasses of Lafitte which I had sipped served to embolden me no
little, so that I felt nothing of trepidation, but merely
uplifted my eyes with a leisurely movement, and looked carefully
around the room for the intruder. I could not, however, perceive
any one at all.

“Humph!” resumed the voice, as I continued my survey, “you mus pe
so dronk as de pig, den, for not zee me as I zit here at your
zide.”