immensely fidgety, " I see you are a good deal
occupied at first coming home. It's natural
enough that you should be. Dear me, there's
Sir John Cashbox! Will you excuse me for
one moment? I shall see you in a day or two,
and then we'll appoint a meeting when you're
not so busy. Good-by, good-by, I'm so delighted
to have seen you." And then he runs off after
the eminent banker, and you see no more of him
for a good six months. And so it is with his
offers of service. "If I had seen you two days
ago—only two days—I could have got the
thing as easily as possible, but now I am afraid
it's just too late. However, I'll see what can
be done; you know there's no one in the world
I am under greater obligations to than yourself,
my dear boy; and no one, I may safely say,
whom I should be so anxious to serve." Of
course, after a few of these little displays of
friendly feeling, you are perfectly ready to give
a vote of "want of confidence" in Mr. Hearty,
and you say with the rest of the world, "he's a
Humbug."

Intimately allied with Cordial Humbug is
what we may call Polite Humbug. Cordial
Humbug is on the decline, and I am not sure
but the same may be affirmed of Polite Humbug
too. It was a very harmless development of the
vice, and for the most part leniently regarded by
mankind.

What an interesting thing it would be to go
back into the annals of the past, with a view of
making researches into the History of Humbug.
To do this thoroughly, it would be needful to dig
out the burial records of all historical characters,
apply to each of them in turn the Great Humbug
Test, and see how he stood it. When
Diogenes took up his residence in that tub of
his—which I fear was not often used for
ablutionary purposes, and in which I have no doubt
he made himself excessively comfortable—he
knew that Alexander would come and see him,
that the interview would be reported faithfully
in the Court Circular of the period, and, in short,
that the circumstance would make a great
sensation, and bring the philosopher into notice—
or, as we say now, before the public. And then
that lantern business! Did it or did it not
show a considerable amount of cool self-confidence
that he was to constitute himself the only
judge of honesty—implying, of course, how very
honest he was—and going peering about to look
for others who should be good enough to keep
him company? And a lantern too! What
possible use was there for that lantern? Do
people not show their honesty by broad day-
light? Does it require lamp-light to develop
it? It is a blessed thing to think how in these
days Diogenes would be harassed by the
British policeman, and how he would be directed
to "move on," and to take "them things,"
meaning the tub and the lantern, and the rest of
his theatrical properties, along with him.

I suppose it is not the most wonderful thing
in the world, but it certainly is one of the most
wonderful things, that this tremendous old
impostor should have made the sensation he did,
and left the mark he has left on the history
of the world. He was a Humbug—  a highly
successful Humbug of the Rough School. As the
first and the greatest of the Rough Humbugs we
own his greatness; otherwise it would certainly
be high time for some historical Quixote to have a
drive at him full tilt, causing that eternal tub to
collapse once for all, shivering the lantern into
an everlasting smash, and scattering the
fragments to the four winds.

As to the acknowledged Humbugs of history,
such as Richard the Third, or Henry the Eighth,
or Louis the Eleventh of France, they stand
confessed as arrant Humbugs. They would form
good landmarks in the history of this vice,
supposing any one should undertake to write it,
and the Historian might make a great deal of
the remarkable power of humbugging the ladies
of his acquaintance possessed by the hump-back,
and the singular capability shown by the more
recent Humbug for humbugging himself.

Sir Walter Raleigh, and that business of the
cloak and the puddle. What are we to say
about that affair? May we claim Sir Walter
for a Humbug? Surely he knew what he was
about, when he made that celebrated artful move
of his. He knew that it would pay—pay for a
new cloak, pay for the refurbishing of the old
one. I shouldn't be the least surprised if the
cloak was an old one. Or perhaps it was a
garment to which the owner had taken a dislike.
Such things happen. I have myself a coat
which never did, and never will, behave well
about the collar: which I would cheerfully cast
into a puddle if I could get a reasonable
opportunity. Then one would like to know about the
exact nature of that historical puddle. If it was
not a very wet puddle, it would not do so very
much damage. But even supposing it did,
could not Sir Walter wear it after all, saying
that that stain was the garment's proudest
decoration, and should never be effaced?

It is lamentable to think what vile suspicions
will sometimes creep into the human mind, and
how hard, when once lodged there, they are to
get rid of. Do what I will, and fight against it
as I may, I cannot shake off a sort of dim
impression, by which I am perpetually haunted:
—to wit, that dear old Izaak Walton was a
little wee bit touched with the disease whose
characteristics we are considering. This is a
horrible confession. The man's memory is
worshipped by a large circle of adorers, and to say
a disparaging word concerning him is to be guilty
of an act next door to church-burglary; yet
somehow there is a slight impression of Humbug
left on the mind by the perusal of the
celebrated work which has made "old Izaak's"
reputation. There is an intense consciousness
of superior virtue in the tone of the writer—as
it comes out in the talk of the character who
plays first fiddle in the dialogue—which is
aggravating. Then there is a little too much
combining of religion and angling: "Indeed,
my friend," says Piscator, "you will find
angling to be like the virtue of humility,
which has a calmness of spirit, and a world of