"Lady," replied Mr. Prohack, "we all have something base in our natures.
Sin springs from opportunity. I cannot resist the damned paper." And he
stuck his fork into the fair frock-coat of a fatuous bridegroom coming
out of church.

"My fault again!" the wife remarked brightly.

The husband changed the subject:

"I suppose that your son and daughter are still asleep?"

"Well, dearest, you know that they were both at that dance last night."

"They ought not to have been. The popular idea that life is a shimmy is
a dangerous illusion." Mr. Prohack felt the epigram to be third-rate,
but he carried it off lightly.

"Sissie only went because Charlie wanted to go, and all I can say is
that it's a nice thing if Charlie isn't to be allowed to enjoy himself
now the war's over--after all he's been through."

"You're mixing up two quite different things. I bet that if Charlie
committed murder you'd go into the witness-box and tell the judge he'd
been wounded twice and won the Military Cross."

"This is one of your pernickety mornings."

"Seeing that your debauched children woke me up at three fifteen--!"

"They woke me up too."