Chapter Contentment is true Riches to Cool Hundred of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Hudson, the railway king, under whose chairmanship the Eastern Counties Railway accounts were falsified. The allusion is to preparing meat for table.

Cooking    Terms belonging to cuisine applied to man under different circumstances:
   Sometimes he is well basted; he boils with rage, is baked with heat, and burns with love or jealousy. Sometimes he is buttered and well buttered; he is often cut up, devoured with a flame, and done brown. We dress his jacket for him; sometimes he is eaten up with care; sometimes he is fried. We cook his goose for him, and sometimes he makes a goose of himself. We make a hash of him, and at times he makes a hash of something else. He gets into hot water, and sometimes into a mess. Is made into mincemeat, makes mincemeat of his money, and is often in a pickle. We are often asked to toast him, sometimes he gets well roasted, is sometimes set on fire, put into a stew, or is in a stew no one knows why. A “soft” is half-baked, one severely handled is well peppered, to falsify accounts is to salt them, wit is Attic salt, and an exaggerated statement must be taken cum grano salis. A pert young person is a sauce box, a shy lover is a spoon, a rich father has to fork out, and is sometimes dished of his money.
   ii. Connected with foods and drinks.
   A conceited man does not think small beer (or small potatoes) of himself, and our mouth is called a potato-trap. A simpleton is a cake, a gudgeon, and a pigeon. Some are cool as a cucumber, others hot as a quail. A chubby child is a little dumpling. A man or woman may be a cheese or duck. A courtesan is called a mutton, and a large coarse hand is a mutton fist. A greedy person is a pig, a fat one is a sausage, and a shy one, if not a sheep, is certainly sheepish; while a Lubin casts sheep's eyes at his lady-love. A coward is chicken -hearted, a fat person is crummy, and a cross one is crusty, while an aristocrat belongs to the upper crust of society. A yeoman of the guards is a beef-eater, a soldier a red herring, a policeman a lobster, and a stingy, ill-tempered old man is a crab. A walking advertiser between two boards is a sandwich. An alderman in his chair is a turkey hung with sausages. Two persons resembling each other are like as two peas. A chit is a mere sprat, a delicate maiden a tit-bit, and a colourless countenance is called a whey - face. “How now? ... Where got ye that whey-face?”

Cooks Athenæus affirms that cooks were the first kings of the earth.
   In the luxurious ages of ancient Greece Sicilian cooks were most esteemed, and received very high wages. Among them Trimalcio was very celebrated. It is said that he could cook the most common fish, and give it the flavour and look of the most highly esteemed.
   In the palmy days of Rome a chief cook had £800 a year. Antony gave the cook who arranged his banquet for Cleopatra the present of a city.
   Modern Cooks.
   CAREME. Called the “Regenerator of Cookery” (1784-1833).
   FRANCATELLI (Charles Elmé), who succeeded Ude at Crockford's. Afterwards he was appointed to the Royal household, and lastly to the Reform Club (1805-1876).
   SOYER (Alexis), who died 1858. His epitaph is Soyer tranquille.
   UDE. The most learned of modern cooks, author of Science de Gueule. It was Ude who said, “A cook must be born a cook, he cannot be made.” Another of his sayings is this: “Music, dancing, fencing, painting, and mechanics possess professors under the age of twenty years, but pre-eminence in cookery can never be attained under thirty years of age.” Ude was chef to Louis XIV., then to Lord Sefton, then to the Duke of York, then to Crockford's Club. He left Lord Sefton's because on one occasion one of the guests added pepper to his soup.
   VATEL. At a fête given by the great Condé to Louis XIV. at Cantilly the roti at the twenty-fifth table was wanting. Vatel being told of it exclaimed that he could not survive such a disgrace. Another messenger then announced that the lobsters for the turbot-sauce had not arrived, whereupon Vatel retired to his room and, leaning his sword against the wall, thrust himself through, and at the third attempt succeeded in killing himself (1671).
   WELTJE. Cook to George while Prince Regent.

Cool Card You are a cool card (or pretty cool card). A person who coolly asks for something preposterous or outrageous. Card = character, hence a queer card, a rum card, etc. And “cool” in this connection means coolly impudent.
    Gifford says the phrase means a “cooling-card, or bolus ”; but this is not likely, as a cool-card acts generally as an irritant. A person's card of address is given at the door, and represents the person himself, and this without doubt is the card referred to.

“You're a shaky old card; and you can't be in love with this Lizzie.”- Dickens: Our Mutual Friend, book iii. chap. i. p. 192.