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