p>Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 422 / Volume 17, New Series, January 31, 1852
THE HAPPY JACKS
'On Saturday, then, at two—humble hours, humble fare; but plenty, and good of its kind; with a talk over old fellows and old times.'
Such was the pith of an invitation to dinner, to accept which I started on a pleasant summer Saturday on the top of a Kentish-town omnibus. My host was Happy Jack. Everybody called him 'Happy Jack:' he called himself 'Happy Jack.' He believed he was an intensely 'Happy' Jack. Yet his friends shook their heads, and the grandest shook theirs the longest, as they added the ominous addendum of 'Poor Devil' to 'Happy Jack.'
'Seen that unhappy wretch, Happy Jack, lately?'
'Seen him! of course, yesterday: he came to borrow a half-sovereign, as two of his children had the measles. He was in the highest spirits, for the pawnbroker lent him more on his watch than he had expected, and so Jack considered the extra shilling or two pure gain. I don't know how the wretch lives, but he seems happier than ever.'
On another occasion, the dialogue would be quite different.
'Who do you think I saw last night in the first tier at the Opera?—who but Happy Jack, and Mrs Happy Jack, and the two eldest Happy Jack girls! Jack himself resplendent in diamond studs, and tremendously laced shirt-front; and as for the women—actually queens of Sheba. A really respectable carriage, too, at the door; for I followed them out in amazement: and off they went like so many lords and ladies. Oh, the sun has been shining somehow on the Happy Jacks!'
In due time I stood before the Terrace honoured by the residence of the Happy Jacks—one of those white, stuccoed rows of houses, with bright green doors and bright brass-plates thereon, which suburban builders so greatly affect. As I entered the square patch of front-garden, I perceived straw lying about, as though there had been recent packing; and looking at the drawing-room window, I missed the muslin curtain and the canary's brass cage swathed all over in gauze. The door opened before I knocked, and Happy Jack was the opener. He was clad in an old shooting-coat and slippers, had a long clay-pipe in his mouth, and was in a state of intense general déshabille. Looking beyond him, I saw that the house was in déshabille as well as the master. There were stairs certainly, but where was the stair-carpet? Happy Jack, however, was clearly as happy as usual. He had a round, red face; and, I will add, a red nose. But the usual sprightly smile stirred the red round face, the usual big guffaw came leaping from the largely opening mouth, the usual gleam of mingled sharpness and bonhomie shone from the large blue eyes. Happy Jack closed the door, and, taking my arm, walked me backwards and forwards on the gravel.
'My boy,' he said, 'we've had a little domestic affair inside; but you being, like myself, a man of the world, we were not of course going to give up our dinner for that. The fact is,' said Jack, attempting to assume a heroic and sentimental tone and attitude, 'that, for the present at least, my household gods are shattered!'
'You mean that'–
'As I said, my household gods are shattered, even in the shrine!'
It was obvious that the twang of this fine phrase gave Jack uncommon pleasure. He repeated it again and again under his breath, flourishing his pipe, so as, allegorically and metaphorically, to set forth the extent of his desolation.
'In other words,' I went on, 'there has been an—an execution'–
'And the brokers have not left a stick. But what of that? These, are accidents which will occur in the best'–
'And Mrs'–
'Oh! She, you know, is apt to be a little downhearted at times; and empty rooms somehow act on her idiosyncrasy. A good woman, but weak. So she's gone for the present to her sisters; and as for the girls, why, Emily is with her mother, and Jane is at the Joneses. Very decent people the Joneses. I put Jones up to a thing which would have made his fortune the week before last; but he wouldn't have it. Jones is slow, and—well– And Clara is with the Hopkinses: I believe so, at least; and Maria is– Confound me if I know where Maria is; but I suppose she's somewhere. Her mother managed it all: I didn't interfere. And so now, as you know the best and the worst, let's come to dinner.'
An empty house is a dismal thing—almost as dismal as a dead body. The echo, as you walk, is dismal; the blank, stripped walls, shewing the places where the pictures and the mirrors have been, are dismal; the bits of straw and the odds and ends of cord are dismal; the coldness, the stillness, the blankness, are dismal. It is no longer a habitation, but a shell.
In the dining-room stood a small deal-table, covered with a scanty cloth, like an enlarged towel; and a baked joint, with the potatoes under it, smoked before us. The foaming pewter-can stood beside it, with a couple of plates, and knives and steel forks. Two Windsor chairs, of evident public-house mould, completed the festive preparations and the furniture of the room. The whole thing looked very dreary; and as I gazed, I felt my appetite fade under the sense of desolation. Not so Happy Jack. 'Come, sit down, sit down. I don't admire baked meat as a rule, but you know, as somebody says—
"When spits and jacks are gone and spent,
Then ovens are most excellent,"
And also most con-ven-i-ent.
The people at the Chequers managed it all. Excellent people they are. I owe them some money, which I shall have great pleasure in paying as soon as possible. No man can pay it sooner.'
The dinner, however, went off with the greatest success. Happy Jack was happier than ever, and consequently irresistible. Every two or three minutes he lugged in something about his household gods and the desolation of his hearth, evidently enjoying the sentiment highly. Then he talked of his plans of taking a new and more expensive house, in a fashionable locality, and furnishing it on a far handsomer scale than the old one. In fact, he seemed rather obliged to the brokers than otherwise for taking the quondam furniture off his hands. It was quite behind the present taste—much of it positively ugly. He had been ashamed to see his wife sitting in that atrocious old easy-chair, but he hoped that he had taken a step which would change all for the better. Warming with his dinner and the liquor, Happy Jack got more and more eloquent and sentimental. He declaimed upon the virtues of Mrs J., and the beauties of the girls. He proposed all their healths seriatim. He regretted the little incident which had prevented their appearance at the festive board; but though absent in person, he was sure that they were present in spirit; and with this impression, he would beg permission to favour them with a song—a song of the social affections—a song of hearth and home—a song which had cheered, and warmed, and softened many a kindly and honest heart: and with this Happy Jack sang—and exceedingly well too, but with a sort of dreadfully ludicrous sentiment—the highly appropriate ditty of My Ain Fireside.
Happy Jack was of no particular profession: he was a bit of a littérateur, a bit of a journalist, a bit of a man of business, a bit of an agent, a bit of a projector, a bit of a City man, and a bit of a West-end man. His business, he said, was of a general nature. He was usually to be heard of in connection with apocryphal companies and misty speculations. He was always great as an agitator. As soon as a League was formed, Happy Jack flew to its head-quarters as a vulture to a battle-field. Was it a league for the promotion of vegetarianism?—or a league for the lowering of the price of meat?—a league for reforming the national costume?—or a league for repealing the laws still existing upon the Statute-book against witches?—Happy Jack was ever in the thickest of the fray, lecturing, expounding, arguing, getting up extempore meetings of the frequenters of public-houses, of which he sent reports to the morning papers, announcing the 'numerous, highly respectable, and influential' nature of the assembly, and modestly hinting, that Mr Happy Jack, 'who was received with enthusiastic applause, moved, in a long and argumentative address, a series of resolutions pledging the meeting to,' &c. Jack, in fact, fully believed that he had done rather more for free-trade than Cobden. Not, he said, that he was jealous of the Manchester champion; circumstances had made the latter better known—that he admitted; still he could not but know—and knowing, feel—in his own heart of hearts, his own merits, and his own exertions.
The railway mania was, as may be judged, a grand time for Happy Jack. The number of lines of which he was a provisional director, the number of schemes which came out—and often at