Le Monsieur de La Petite Dame

Oh! returned Renard, shrugging his shoulders, we did not give it to him. It was an awkward servant who dubbed him so at first. She was new to her position, and forgot his name, and being asked who had arrived, stumbled upon this bon mot: Un monsieur, Madame – le monsieur de la petite dame, ‘ – and, being repeated and tossed lightly from hand to hand, it has become at last an established witticism, albeit bandied under breath.