The Investor

The mature young gentleman is a gentleman of property. He invests his property. He goes, in a condescending amateurish way, into the City, attends meetings of Directors, and has to do with traffic in Shares. As is well known to the wise in their generation, traffic in Shares is the one thing to have to do with in this world. Have no antecedents, no established character, no cultivation, no ideas, no manners; have Shares. Have Shares enough to be on Boards of Direction in capital letters, oscillate on mysterious business between London and Paris, and be great. Where does he come from? Shares. Where is he going to? Shares. What are his tastes? Shares. Has he any principles? Shares. What squeezes him into Parliament? Shares. Perhaps he never of himself achieved success in anything, never originated anything, never produced anything? Sufficient answer to all; Shares.  

– Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

And one more bit of this book:

Mr Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr Podsnap’s opinion.

That's the thing with Dickens; the plots are mostly riduculous, and this one seems especially contrived and silly, but there's a line like that on almost every page.