No one ever explained the octopuses.

Stop playing verbal games with me, madam, or I shall go out into that ballroom, find your mother, and bring her here

Ah, Lady Maccon, how lovely. I did wonder when you would track us down.” “I was unavoidably delayed by husbands and Ivys,” explained Alexia. “These things, regrettably, are bound to occur when one is married and befriended.

Alexia figured, delightedly, that this meant he did, in fact, tend to traipse around his private apartments in the altogether. Marriage was becoming more and more of an attractive prospect.

My Hallway" remarked Lord Akeldama,"Has never seen such lively action. And That, my sugarplums, is saying something!

[She] lost her patience, a thing she was all too prone to misplacing.

Oh, Lady Maccon, I am unreservedly in love with her. That black hair, that sweet disposition, those capital hats.