To go like a duck. To waddle out of Change alley as a lame duck; a term for one who has not been able to pay his gaming debts, called his differences, on the Stock Exchange, and therefore absents himself from it.
Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose.
Wabler * WagNathan Bailey's 1736 Dictionary of canting and thieving slang
John S. Farmer's collection of canting songs and slang rhymes