“Sir,” said the widow, indignantly, “you are impertinent!” And she left her seat and took another on the other side of the car.
“’Pears to be a little huffy?” said the ineffable bore. Turning to our narrator behind him, “What did they make you pay for that umbrella you’ve got in your hand?”
A person more remarkable for inquisitiveness than good-breeding—one of those who, devoid of delicacy and reckless of rebuff, pry into everything—took the liberty to question Alexander Dumas rather closely concerning his genealogical tree.
“You are a quadroon, Mr. Dumas?” he began.
“I am, sir,” replied M. Dumas, who had seen enough not to be ashamed of a descent he could not conceal.
“And your father?”
“Was a mulatto.”
“And your grandfather?”
“A negro,” hastily answered the dramatist, whose patience was waning.