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Page 44
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.
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