Silence is occasionally infectious. Oppressed by private anxieties of
their own, Marguerite and Vendale appeared to feel the influence of the
speechless friend. The whole responsibility of keeping the talk going
rested on Obenreizer's shoulders, and manfully did Obenreizer sustain it.
He opened his heart in the character of an enlightened foreigner, and
sang the praises of England. When other topics ran dry, he returned to
this inexhaustible source, and always set the stream running again as
copiously as ever. Obenreizer would have given an arm, an eye, or a leg
to have been born an Englishman. Out of England there was no such
institution as a home, no such thing as a fireside, no such object as a
beautiful woman. His dear Miss Marguerite would excuse him, if he
accounted for _her_ attractions on the theory that English blood must
have mixed at some former time with their obscure and unknown ancestry.
Survey this English nation, and behold a tall, clean, plump, and solid
people! Look at their cities! What magnificence in their public
buildings! What admirable order and propriety in their streets! Admire
their laws, combining the eternal principle of justice with the other
eternal principle of pounds, shillings, and pence; and applying the
product to all civil injuries, from an injury to a man's honour, to an
injury to a man's nose! You have ruined my daughter--pounds, shillings,
and pence! You have knocked me down with a blow in my face--pounds,
shillings, and pence! Where was the material prosperity of such a
country as _that_ to stop? Obenreizer, projecting himself into the
future, failed to see the end of it. Obenreizer's enthusiasm entreated
permission to exhale itself, English fashion, in a toast. Here is our
modest little dinner over, here is our frugal dessert on the table, and
here is the admirer of England conforming to national customs, and making
a speech! A toast to your white cliffs of Albion, Mr. Vendale! to your
national virtues, your charming climate, and your fascinating women! to