Pot-luck

During my Stay here, I was going to take Pot-Luck with Colonel Ingram, and accidentally meeting him in the Way, I told him I deſigned to ſoul a Plate with him, [...]

Me, to pot-luck, may any friend invite: / The treat, I can return, is my delight.

Last evening, at the Free Trade Club, a dinner was given by Hon. Robert R. Roosevelt to a large number of his friends. Though invitations had been issued for a week previous, the feast was decidedly of an impromptu character as far the viands went. [...] Cards of invitation of an amusing character were issued, on which the menu was indicated, with the names of the improvised cooks who were to concoct gumbo, lobster cutlets, plumb pudding, various salads, and coffee. […] Course followed course in the most tumultuous way. Culinary inspirations and cookery nocturnes of all flavors and tastes crowded one on another. Anything like system was discarded, and this was thought likely to destroy the artistic effects of this pot-luck picnic.

How to get rich of Dutch Henry taxed the wits of the invaders. The whole morning and the early afternoon went to pot-luck firing from the trench along the draw, but although it was often asserted that Henry must long since be dead—having returned none of the shooting that was meant to call his fire—no one manifested the curiosity necessary to prove the assertion by closing in on the cabin.