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.
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