"'I was called after the celebrated violinist of Cremona who lived in the seventh century, who was named Cornelius Crejanus, or, as some spell, Creganus; and, in compliance with modern usages, they anglicized me into Con Cregan."
"I have the honor to propose Con Cregan's health," said the president; "and may he see many happy years ere he next goes to sleep in a wooden box!"
This very gratifying toast was drunk with the most flattering acclamations, and I descended from the tribune the "man of the evening."
If some of the company who put credence in my story did not hesitate to ascribe a strong interest in me to the Royal Duke himself, others, who put less faith in my narrative, thought less of my parentage, and more of myself; so that what I lost on one hand, I gained on the other.
There was a discretion, a certain shadowy prudery about certain portions of my story, of which I have not attempted to convey any notion here, but which I saw had "told" with the fair part of my audience, who, possibly not over rigid in many of their opinions, were well pleased with the delicate reserve in which I shrouded my direct allusion to my parentage. A rough, red-whiskered skipper, indeed, seemed disposed to pour a broadside into this mystery, by asking "If his Royal Highness never took any notice of me?" but the refined taste of the company concurred in the diplomatic refusal to answer a question of which the "hon. gentleman on the straw chair" had given "no notice."
The pleasures of the table,--a very luscious bowl of the liquid which bore the mysterious epithet of "Thumbo-rig," and which was a concoction of the genus punch, spiced, sugared, and iced to a degree that concealed its awful tendency to anti-Mathewism; bright eyes that were no churls of their glances; merry converse; and that wondrous "magnetism of the board" which we call good fellowship,--made the time pass rapidly. Toasts and sentiments of every fashion went round, and we were political, literary, arbitrary, amatory, sentimental, and satiric by turns. They were pleasant varlets! and in their very diversity of humors there was that clash and collision of mind and metal that tell more effectively than the best packed party of choice wits who ever sat and watched each other.