My name is David Diggs. I am a surgeon, living at No. 9 Tottenham Court. On the 15th of June, 1854, I was called to see an elderly gentleman lodging on the Kent Road. Found him highly excited, with strong febrile symptoms, pulse 120, increasing. Repeated incoherently what I judged to be the popular form of a conundrum. On closer examination found acute hydrocephalus and both lobes of the brain rapidly filling with water. In consultation with an eminent phrenologist, it was further discovered that all the organs were more or less obliterated, except that of Comparison. Hence the patient was enabled to only distinguish the most common points of resemblance between objects, without drawing upon other faculties, such as Ideality or Language, for assistance. Later in the day found him sinking,--being evidently unable to carry the most ordinary conundrum to a successful issue. Exhibited Tinct. Val., Ext. Opii, and Camphor, and prescribed quiet and emollients. On the 17th the patient was missing. CHAPTER LAST. STATEMENT OF THE PUBLISHER. On the 18th of June, Mr. Wilkie Collins left a roll of manuscript with us for publication, without title or direction, since which time he has not been heard from. In spite of the care of the proof-readers, and valuable literary assistance, it is feared that the continuity of the story has been destroyed by some accidental misplacing of chapters during its progress. How and what chapters are so misplaced, the publisher leaves to an indulgent public to discover. N N. BEING A NOVEL IN THE FRENCH PARAGRAPHIC STYLE. --Mademoiselle, I swear to you that I love you. --You who read these pages. You who turn your burning eyes upon these words--words that I trace-- Ah, Heaven! the thought maddens me. --I will be calm. I will imitate the reserve of the festive Englishman, who wears a spotted handkerchief which he calls a Belchio, who eats biftek, and caresses a bulldog. I will subdue myself like him. --Ha! Poto-beer! All right--Goddam! --Or, I will conduct myself as the free-born American--the gay Brother Jonathan! I will whittle me a stick. I will whistle to myself "Yankee Doodle," and forget my passion in excessive expectoration. --Hoho!--wake snakes and walk chalks. The world is divided into two great divisions,--Paris and the provinces. There is but one Paris. There are several provinces, among which may be numbered England, America, Russia, and Italy. N N. was a Parisian. But N N. did not live in Paris. Drop a Parisian in the provinces, and you drop a part of Paris with him. Drop him in Senegambia, and in three days he will give you an omelette soufflee, or a pate de foie gras, served by the neatest of Senegambian filles, whom he will call Mademoiselle. In three weeks he will give you an opera. N N. was not dropped in Senegambia, but in San Francisco,--quite as awkward. They find gold in San Francisco, but they don't understand gilding.