Jack Robinson was a man in olden days who became well known because of the shortness of his visits when he came to call on his friends, according to Grose, who has looked up the subject very carefully. When the servants at a home where Jack Robinson called went to announce his coming to the host and his assembled guests, it was said that they hardly had time to repeat his name out loud before he would take his departure again. Another man, Halliwell, who has also investigated the development of the expression, thinks that it was derived from the description of a character in an old play, "Jack, Robes on."

It is also interesting to learn that the sandwiches which we all enjoy so much at picnics are so called because of the fact that an English nobleman, the Earl of Sandwich, always used to eat his meat between two pieces of bread.