AS HAPPY (JOLLY or MERRY) AS A SANDBOY, phr. (old).—‘All rags and all happiness … a merry fellow who has tasted a drop’ (BEE).
1840. DICKENS, The Old Curiosity Shop, xvii. I put up at the JOLLY SANDBOYS, and nowhere else.
1900. G. BOOTHBY, A Maker of Nations, iv. He had had a fairly rough time of it, but the men seemed as jolly as SANDBOYS.
