“Except,” Eugene strikes in: so unexpectedly that the mature young lady, who has forgotten all about him, with a start takes the epaulette out of his way: “except our friend who long lived on rice-pudding and isinglass, till at length to his something or other, his physician said something else, and a leg of mutton somehow ended in daygo.”

A reviving impression goes round the table that Eugene is coming out. An unfulfilled impression, for he goes in again.