Cousin Feenix rises, when the company have breakfasted, and the servants have left the room; and wonderfully young he looks, with his white wristbands almost covering his hands (otherwise rather bony), and the bloom of the champagne in his cheeks.
“Upon my honour,” says Cousin Feenix, “although it’s an unusual sort of thing in a private gentleman’s house, I must beg leave to call upon you to drink what is usually called a—in fact a toast.”
The Major very hoarsely indicates his approval. Mr Carker, bending his head forward over the table in the direction of Cousin Feenix, smiles and nods a great many times.
“A—in fact it’s not a—” Cousin Feenix beginning again, thus, comes to a dead stop.
“Hear, hear!” says the Major, in a tone of conviction.
Mr Carker softly claps his hands, and bending forward over the table again, smiles and nods a great many more times than before, as if he were particularly struck by this last observation, and desired personally to express his sense of the good it has done.
“It is,” says Cousin Feenix, “an occasion in fact, when the general usages of life may be a little departed from, without impropriety; and although I never was an orator in my life, and when I was in the House of Commons, and had the honour of seconding the address, was—in fact, was laid up for a fortnight with the consciousness of failure—”
The Major and Mr Carker are so much delighted by this fragment of personal history, that Cousin Feenix laughs, and addressing them individually, goes on to say:
“And in point of fact, when I was devilish ill—still, you know, I feel that a duty devolves upon me. And when a duty devolves upon an Englishman, he is bound to get out of it, in my opinion, in the best way he can. Well! our family has had the gratification, today, of connecting itself, in the person of my lovely and accomplished relative, whom I now see—in point of fact, present—”
Here there is general applause.