“Did I ever say an engagement was an elephant, madam?”

“But perhaps you do not understand. I was crippled, crippled by an elephant that came through the roof - Madam LaVaughn”

“I say, Gibson, we're old friends, and you're a fool if you take anything I say as an offence. Madam your wife and I did not hit it off the only time I ever saw her. I won't say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it was not me.”

“The world rests upon a turtle, which itself stands on the back of an elephant!”Alek tried not to laugh. “Then what does the elephant stand on, madam?”“Don’t try to be clever, young man.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s elephants all the way down!”

“Were we to be engaged in a war . . we should become absolutely destitute of elephants. . .What would our children do without elephants to amuse them? What would the sick do without the sight of elephants to invigorate them?”

“In England I am always madam; I arrived too late to ever be a miss. In New York I have only been madamed once, by the doorman at the Carlyle Hotel.”