Episode 6
Welcome to this week's Poe Blog w/Peter Francis.
"Edgar you old Pump Handle you!"
-Peter Francis
Promethean Books presents
Episode Six of
"DIDDLING: Considered as One of the Exact Sciences"
By Edgar Allan Poe
"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 shop-keeper-
"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."
"Very good, sir," replies the shop-keeper, who entertains, at once, a lofty opinion of the high-mindedness of his customer. "I know fellows," he says to himself, "who would just have put the goods under their arm, and walked off with a promise to call and pay the dollar as they came by in the afternoon."
A boy is sent with the parcel and change. On the route, quite accidentally, he is met by the purchaser, who exclaims:
"Ah! this is my bundle, I see - I thought you had been home with it, long ago. Well, go on! My wife, Mrs. Trotter, will give you the five dollars - I left instructions with her to that effect. The change you might as well give to me - I shall want some silver for the Post Office. Very good! One, two, - is this a good quarter? - three, four - quite right! Say to Mrs. Trotter that you met me, and be sure now and do not loiter on the way."
The boy doesn't loiter at all - but he is a very long time in getting back from his errand - for no lady of the precise name of Mrs. Trotter is to be discovered. He consoles himself, however, that he has not been such a fool as to leave the goods without the money, and re-entering his shop with a self-satisfied air, feels sensibly hurt and indignant when his master asks him what has become of the change.
(To be continued...)
"Edgar you old Pump Handle you!"
-Peter Francis
Promethean Books presents
Episode Six of
"DIDDLING: Considered as One of the Exact Sciences"
By Edgar Allan Poe
"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 shop-keeper-
"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."
"Very good, sir," replies the shop-keeper, who entertains, at once, a lofty opinion of the high-mindedness of his customer. "I know fellows," he says to himself, "who would just have put the goods under their arm, and walked off with a promise to call and pay the dollar as they came by in the afternoon."
A boy is sent with the parcel and change. On the route, quite accidentally, he is met by the purchaser, who exclaims:
"Ah! this is my bundle, I see - I thought you had been home with it, long ago. Well, go on! My wife, Mrs. Trotter, will give you the five dollars - I left instructions with her to that effect. The change you might as well give to me - I shall want some silver for the Post Office. Very good! One, two, - is this a good quarter? - three, four - quite right! Say to Mrs. Trotter that you met me, and be sure now and do not loiter on the way."
The boy doesn't loiter at all - but he is a very long time in getting back from his errand - for no lady of the precise name of Mrs. Trotter is to be discovered. He consoles himself, however, that he has not been such a fool as to leave the goods without the money, and re-entering his shop with a self-satisfied air, feels sensibly hurt and indignant when his master asks him what has become of the change.
(To be continued...)
posted by R.Chip DeGlinkta at 7:24 PM
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