To proceed with the personal qualifications necessary to a Swindler. He must have a face of purest brass. If handsome, all the better; yet, perhaps, expression is of greater importance than the mere proportion of feature. If, however, he _look_ a Swindler—if to the contemplative men who peruse human lines, printed in the blackest ink on some human faces, he look his profession—his success with the sages of trade is certain. It is, however, of the first importance that there should be no alloy in the face. It should, for instance, be as incapable of emotion as the bull hide on the shield of Ajax.[14] This, youthful Swindler, is the besetting danger; hence, bend all your energies to obtain a stony look of self-possession. Though a constable should put his “dead hand” upon your shoulder, and your very marrow should thrill at the touch—your face must remain motionless as the face of the Apollo Belvidere—your eye unquenched—your voice with not a crack in it. I will not disguise the difficulties of arriving at this super-human placidity. Talk of the self-possession of a Cæsar—the coolness of a Napoleon—quackery all! What is there in the composure of a man who takes snuff whilst hundreds of other men’s limbs are being blown into the air (to be wept over by the spirits of glory), with at the most a _sauve qui peut_ for it; whilst, in the scale of advantage, there is a laurel wreath and a triumphant entry and civic addresses,—what is all this to the quiet dignity demanded of a swindler in a perilous situation—his splendid cabriolet, perhaps, waiting at the shop—whilst, sneaked out at the back door, Bob the apprentice has run for Police Officer Snatchem, F. No. 20, to attend immediately to our hero, who at his approach beholds a no dim vision of the very handsome police omnibus—the prison barber with his ignominious shears—and hears, or thinks he hears, the pathetic, admonitory address of Common Sergeant or Recorder? It may, according to a worn metaphor, take nerves of iron to direct an army; but they must be brass, and of the finest brass too, to swindle. Fighting is, indeed, a mechanic trade; millions can fight,—but how few can gracefully swindle! We know that the result of both operations is often the same, but how inferior one to the other! Bonaparte brought a _few_ pictures from Italy, which the world—Heaven knows!—made noise enough about. In warlike phrase he “took them” from a vanquished people: a poor, shabby act to brag of; but had he, unassisted by squadrons and battalions, and parks of artillery—had he, by the unassisted efforts of his own mind, with no other masked battery, no other weapon than his own hand and his own tongue,—had he robbed one dealer of a Correggio—another of a Raphael—a third of a Titian—a fourth of a Murillo—and so on,—it had indeed been an achievement to boast of; but to crack of the incident as one of the trophies of the army of Italy was the sublime of gasconading! My late