So the countess sat silent while the banquet proceeded.
"Beef, Harry ?" shouted the young heir to his friend Baker.

"Oh! but I see it isn't your turn yet.

I beg your pardon, Miss Bateson," and he sent to that lady a pound and a half of excellent meat, cut out with great energy in one slice, about half an inch thick.
And so the banquet went on.
Before dinner Frank had found himself obliged to make numerous small speeches in answer to the numerous individual congratulations of his friends; but these were as nothing to the one great accumulated onus of an oration which he had long known that he should have to sustain after the cloth was taken away.

Someone of course would propose his health, and then there would be a clatter of voices, ladies and gentlemen, men and girls; and when that was done he would find himself standing on his legs, with the room about him, going round and round and round.
Having had a previous hint of this, he had sought advice from his cousin, the Honourable George, whom he regarded as a dab at speaking; at least, so he had heard the Honourable George say of himself.
"What the deuce is a fellow to say, George, when he stands up after the clatter is done ?" "Oh, it's the easiest thing in life," said the cousin.

"Only remember this: you mustn't get astray; that is what they call presence of mind, you know.