Their wonderful little made-dishes were mere scraps and
fragments, which in any other house would have been flung away, but
which were so artistically and scientifically handled by the young
ladies, and so tossed up, and titivated, and eked out with gravies,
and sauces, and strange devices of nondescript pasty, that Happy Jack,
feasting upon these wonderful creations of ingenuity, used to vow that
he never dined so well as when there was nothing in the house for
dinner. To their wandering, predatory life the whole family were
perfectly accustomed. A sudden turn out of quarters they cared no more
for than hardened old dragoons. They never lost pluck. One speculation
down, another came on. Sometimes the little household was united. A
bit of luck in the City or the West had been achieved, and Happy Jack
issued cards for 'At Homes,' and behaved, and looked, and spoke like
an alderman, or the member of a house of fifty years' standing. When
strangers saw his white waistcoat, and blue coat with brass buttons,
and heard him talk of a glut of gold, and money being a mere drug,
they speculated as to whether he was the governor or the vice-governor
of the Bank of England, or only the man who signs the five-pound
notes.
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