“Be easy, then; I will not disappear. But when may I go away with my wife?”
“I shall take my daughter with me, and arrange an opportune time when the decencies of the situation may be observed.”
“And who will take me?”
“You will go alone, but you will not go, understand me well, until there isn’t a cat left at the ball.”
“I shall be getting to bed very late, then. Some of the people will want square dances and country dances, and——”
“You will get to bed soon enough, son-in-law.”
“But why all this, mother-in-law?”
“That will do, M. Tamponnet! It is not becoming that this conversation be prolonged.”
Alexandre Dumas, the Elder, was a noted novelist and dramatist. His output was enormous, and the wit, though always discernible, was subordinate to matters of heroism, adventure and the like.