As he emptied the thin glass he snapped the shank between his fingers

 

The wide-eyed mess sergeant filled the glasses in dead silence. Once more the colonel rose, but his hand shook, and the port spilled on the table as he looked straight at the man in Little Mildred's chair and said, hoarsely, "Mr. Vice*, the Queen." There was a little pause, but the man sprang to his feet and answered, without hesitation, "The Queen, God bless her!" and as he emptied the thin glass he snapped the shank between his fingers.

Long and long ago, when the Empress of India was a young woman, and there were no unclean ideals in the land, it was the custom in a few messes to drink the Queen's toast in broken glass, to the huge delight of the mess contractors. The custom is now dead, because there is nothing to break anything for, except now and again the word of a government, and that has been broken already.

Rudyard Kipling, The Man Who Was (1889) 

repris dans le recueil Mine Own People (1891)

*Clarification pour le lecteur français: le colonel, présidant la tablée du haut bout de la table, s'adresse au personnage assis à l'opposée, au bas bout, comme à son "vice-président", Mr. Vice.