“Is it otherwise with the physician, who sells his guesses for truth, and doubts and doubts a patient into the grave, whilst his medicinal palm is open for the guinea? When the apothecary vends cinnamon and peppermint water for elixir vitæ, doth he practise a noble art? Yea; for, safely and successfully, he—swindles.
“When the tradesman—his housemaid at the time perhaps in Bridewell for petty larceny committed on the greasepot—when he, smiling across the counter at his victim, puts off knowingly the poorest commodity at the highest price, how stands he in relation to his captive handmaid? Why, Rebecca has robbed, but the tradesman has only driven his trade: the slut has for ever and for ever lost her character, with it seven pounds per annum, and, it may be, tea and sugar included—but for Mr Jackson, her master, he has turned the profit penny; he has—but all in the way of business—swindled.”
“It is very true,” exclaimed my father with an oath, “it is very true. When what is swindling isn’t swindling according to law, it’s a fortune to a man; but when it’s agin law, and found out——”
“The result I know,” cried my uncle, a slight tint of red suffusing his manly cheek. “All mankind may be divided into two classes: the swindlers according to custom and to law, and the swindlers according to the bent of their natural genius.”
“True agin,” cried my father, slapping his thigh.
“Still, the propensity,” said my uncle, “is universal: men only want temptation. It is extraordinary how, like a chain, the feeling runs from breast to breast. Jack Smasher was one of the prettiest hands at coining; and more, he was blessed with a wife born, I should say, with a genius for passing bad money. She took a crown—one of her husband’s base-begotten offspring—purchased with it three pennyworth of rhubarb from a Quaker chemist, who—undone man!—handed over four-and-ninepence change. Aminadab Straightback was, even among his brethren, the brightest child of truth. In due season Aminadab detected the guileful crown, and in his own clear breast resolved to destroy it. However, it remained by the strangest accident in his till, and by an accident still more extraordinary, was given in part of change for a guinea to a gentleman a little the worse for liquor, who on his way home to bed took the precaution of dropping into Straightback’s for a box of—his own patent—anti-bacchic pills. In the morning the vinous gentleman discovered the pocket-piece, but as he had changed more than one guinea, could not with certainty detect the giver of the counterfeit. No matter. It remained loose with other money in his pocket, and one day, to his own surprise, he found he had passed it. He had taken a journey, and it was very dark when, in the handsomest manner, he fee’d the coachman. The poor man who drove the Tally-ho did not realise more than £400 per annum, and could not afford to lose five shillings; hence Smasher’s crown became at a fitting opportunity the property of a sand-blind old gentlewoman, who, her loss discovered, lifted up her hands at the iniquity of the world, and put aside the brassy wickedness. The good old soul never missed a charity sermon. The Reverend Mr Sulphurtongue made a sweet discourse in favour of the conversion of the Jews, and the churchwardens condescended to hold each a plate. To the great disgust of the discoverers, a bad crown was detected amongst the subscribed half-crowns and shillings. The beadle was directed to destroy it. He intended to do so, but, in pure forgetfulness, passed it one day for purl; the landlady of the ‘George’ having, as she said ‘taken it, was resolved not to lose it,’ and by some accident it was given to a pedlar, who, after a walk of twenty miles, entered an ale-house, took his supper of bread and cheese, went to bed, rose, and proffered for his account Jack Smasher’s pocket-piece. The pedlar was immediately given into the hands of a constable, taken before a magistrate, and ordered to be imprisoned and whipped as a passer of counterfeit coin.”
“See what luck is!” cried my father; “it’s the Quaker what should have lost the dollar.”
“He couldn’t do it; for though he was a most respectable person, and lived and died with that character, he was but a man. He had been swindled—the link of the chain was touched, and it vibrated—you perceive, it vibrated?”
Again my father nodded.
“Yes,” exclaimed Barabbas Whitefeather, “I repeat it—the sympathy is universal. All men can, do, or might, swindle. Though with many the propensity be latent, it surely exists, and needs but the happy moment to be awakened into life. The proof is easy: take ten, twenty, thirty men—creatures of light; admirable, estimable, conscientious persons; by-words of excellence, proverbs of truth in their individual dealings; and yet, make of them a ‘board’—a ‘committee’—a ‘council’—a ‘company’—no matter what may be the collective name by which they may be known—and immediately every member will acknowledge the quickening of a feeling—a sudden growth of an indomitable lust to—swindle. What is this but a proof of the faculty—as I have said—dormant, but requiring only the necessary agent to awaken it? Oh! let no man perk himself up in the pride of his innocence—strut and pout, big with the prejudice of respectability! He knows not the mystery of his own nature; for though to his own eyes he shall be a saint, he will, when time and purpose shall see fit to call his better feelings into life, he will, he must, he cannot do otherwise than—swindle.”