Oliver clearly comprehended the judgment that was passed on Fan’s sister-of-mercy performance; but he had no idea that he, with his eyes open and a very different disposition towards the company, ran any risk of being indicted for a similar offence. CHAPTER XVI. THE MIDDLE AND END OF THE FEAST. It was Oliver Constable’s misfortune that he could no more make a speech, unless under high pressure, than he could dance a minuet; so that when there was toast-giving chiefly to thank old Dadd, who sat at the foot of the table-cloth, and the matron who presided at the head, Oliver went through a halting, stuttering formula, at the expense of a good deal of colloquial Saxon, common-sense, and mother wit, thus failing again ignominiously—this time in the very help which his companions considered they had a right to expect at his hand, or rather mouth. A fluent speech, well garnished with Latin quotations which nobody would have understood, might have lent an _éclat_ to this part of the day’s programme, and carried off some of the tedium. If a young man who had received Oliver’s education, could not deliver such a speech, his friends had a right to be disappointed, aggrieved and disgusted—especially as Oliver, by moving to secure the attendance of the old fogies at the picnic, had brought down upon the more juvenile members of the company the revival of an obsolete rite, which nobody relished save old Dadd, who entertained the delusion that he was good at a funny speech. The result of Oliver’s incompetency here, was as if he had got his associates into a trap and left them in the lurch.