Happy Jack was of no particular profession: he was a bit of a _litterateur_, 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.