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 a 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