“Were he not a diddler, he would be a maker of patent rat-traps or an angler for trout.”

“Some grumble but all submit, and the diddler goes home a wealthier man by some fifty or sixty dollars well earned.”

“Many's the diddler who's passed a whole season thus, dead-heading it on the steamers of the Crescent City.”

“It has become the profession of public office seekers, title hunters, social pushers, dollar diddlers, mountebanks and cads.”