"Carl!" his wife cried indignantly. "That's a horrid thing to say! You must rescue her at once!"
"Oh, I suppose so," he said, then gave his wife a nasty little grin that he knew would irritate her. "It isn't that she's unattractive, my dear, in case you hadn't noticed, though she's pretty well past the bloom of youth—"
"Will you stop making leering noises and go save her or not?"
"I was coming to that. It's just that she persists in using her Ph.D. as a club to beat men into respectful pulps. Men don't like being beaten into respectful pulps, whether by a man or a woman. Now if she'd only learned that other people have feelings—"
"If you don't stop lecturing and go, I will!" his wife threatened.
"All right, all right," he said wearily. "Come on, Mortland."