instance we have at once illustrated Simple
Humbug, and Compound Humbug, and the Humbug
of Sustaining Humbug in others. It is not often
that one kills so many birds with one stone.

Somehow— one never can tell how— it does
not happen that these extremely artless and
simple personages show their simplicity in
pecuniary transactions; they are never too
innocent to look after the main chance. They know
a florin from a half-crown, and a ten-pound note
from a five; and this is the more remarkable,
because as to all other matters they seem to
live quite in the clouds.

It has been said that the Humbug, simple or
innocent, is nearly allied to the Mysterious
Humbug. In like manner are the Rough
Humbug and the Simple Humbug intimately
connected: the former being indeed only a
Simple Humbug, who is grumpy instead of
civil. The Humbug of roughness, like that of
simplicity, is characterised by great
unconsciousness and ignorance of the ways of the
world; but, unlike Simple Humbug, it is
distinguished by an entire absence of courteousness
and amiability. The Rough Humbug, too, is a
ferocious denouncer of the world, and is a
malignant despiser of the forms of society. He
associates, however, with the people whom he
despises. He abuses people openly, for this is
part of his plan; but continues to mix with
them. " What a humbug that man is," he will
say of one of his toadies, "yet the creature
has qualities for which one forgives him." Of
course the Rough Humbug is a being much
too sublime to know anything about costume,
or what are the fashions of the period, and
consequently he wears very often garments
which are very unlike other people's. But
this can hardly be done in pure unconsciousness
and carelessness about appearances,
because sometimes the cut of his clothing is quite
peculiar to himself, so that it becomes a matter
of certainty that he must go into minute
explanations of what he requires, whenever he
has to call in the services of a new tailor. There
is no real indifference to appearances here. I
suppose the first Rough Humbug of whom we
have any knowledge was Diogenes; but who
shall say when we may hope to commemorate
the last? It is a rôle which may not be taken
up by any man, unless he has got some position
in the world, for otherwise it would not be
tolerated; but having got the position, he may
take up the part and stick to it. First of all,
it is needful that he settle with himself
comfortably, that all men, he excepted, are fools
and idiots. He will decide that in every case
the beaten track is to be avoided, and that
what has been settled by all men, at all
places, and of all times, to be right, is most
probably wrong. He will hold that to enjoy the
society of one's fellow-creatures is folly, unless,
indeed, it be to make one of a group of satellites
who sit at his feet, or at those of the one or
two others of the same stamp whom he
acknowledges to have a little gleam of something in
them.  He thinks that to have your clothes
cut after the fashion, is weakness; and that to
dress for dinner is lunacy. He despises dinner-
parties, balls, riding in the Park, field-sports, and
race-courses; but yet will startle you by some
tastes which he affects, and which you would
have thought the least compatible with his
character. Perhaps he will suddenly take to
going to the Opera, though he will not know
what is the right time to go there, or how he
ought to dress, or the names of the different
operas. He will say he likes the jingle and
tinsel of the thing; and he will get hold of some
man initiated in the ways of the world
(generally pretty high up in it, too), and will walk off
with him to a shop, and make him choose " the
kind of thing that a man ought to twist about
his neck, and the kind of foolish attire that
he should thrust his legs into, in order to be
allowed to go and listen in peace to the fiddling
and the rest of it."

You have only to encourage the Humbug
Rough sufficiently, by playing into his hands, to
see how startlingly he will " come out." Perhaps
you have asked him to dinner, and invited a
number of friends to meet him. I wish you
joy. It is two to one that he keeps you waiting
an hour, and then, when you have at last
sat down to dinner, and are half through the
meal, walks in in a shooting jacket, and says he
had forgot all about it, and had fallen asleep
while sitting in his garden and listening to a
cuckoo—which remined him of the talk of a
man whom he met the last time he dined out.
Or, perhaps, when you have him. fairly seated
at your table, he will astonish your guests by
requesting your servant not to bring him any
of those kickshaw monstrosities, which are not
fit for the stomach of a plain man, but to fetch
him a plate of meat, if there is such a thing
in the house, and to bring him a mug of beer.
And all this time the Humbugs, who support
Humbug in others, will nudge each other,
and whisper " that Diogenes is in great force
to-night."

I once knew a Humbug of this species
who told me one day that he had had occasion
that afternoon to walk through a certain
part of the town, and that he had found himself
in the midst of a mass of people dressed up in
all sorts of outlandish costumes— men in black
gowns, and with wigs on their heads, and men
in red coats, and men in dresses like those worn
by footmen, only with bits of black silk fastened
to the backs of their coat-collars, and with
swords hanging by their sides— and the street
was full of soldiers on horseback, and crowded
with a gaping mob looking on at it all with their
mouths open. And seeing all this, Diogenes
had selected one out of this gaping herd, and
had asked him what all this might mean? Unto
which question the man had replied
indignantly: using some expression which D. could
not remember, not being familiar with the same.
I asked if the word in question were " gammon,"
and, curiously enough, my conjecture
proved to be right. The man in the street had
conceived it to be "gammon" that Diogenes