A jerk in his gait, owing to the bit of lead Mrs.Mel had dropped into him, and a little, perhaps, to her self-satisfied essay in surgical science on his person, earned him the name he went by.
When her neighbours remonstrated with her for housing a reprobate, Mrs.
Mel would say: 'Dandy is well-fed and well-physicked: there's no harm in Dandy'; by which she may have meant that the food won his gratitude, and the physic reduced his humours.

She had observed human nature.

At any rate, Dandy was her creature; and the great Mel himself rallied her about her squire.
'When were you drunk last ?' was Mrs.Mel's address to Dandy, as he stood waiting for orders.
He replied to it in an altogether injured way: 'There, now; you've been and called me away from my dinner to ask me that.

Why, when I had the last chance, to be sure.' 'And you were at dinner in your new black suit ?' 'Well,' growled Dandy, 'I borrowed Sally's apron.

Seems I can't please ye.' Mrs.Mel neither enjoined nor cared for outward forms of respect, where she was sure of complete subserviency.