- Sir Percy Blakeney: I can save my wife only if we save France. For I love France, and I love the loveliest of all French women, my wife - more than anything else in the world.
- Chauvelin: [Inspired to verse by Sir Percy] I set a trap/As bait, a belle/His pretty spouse, I grieve to tell/But I never dreamed/ That I shoud trap/The spouse, the mouse/And the gang as well!
- Sir Percy Blakeney: [On Chauvelin's poem] In comparison, my own efforts are the merest doggerel. One might even say 'mongrel doggerel' ...