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. Visiters 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."