DOVETAIL • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Dovetail

... offices afford them an excellent variety of characters, which, like skilful dramatists, they work up until they become really humorous: many of the cases afford them capital plots, into which they cleverly dovetail pleasant little episodes, and adhere no closer to the deposed facts than many of our by-gone playwrights have done to the sacred page of history. We allude only to the cases of humour which occur at the police-offices: those reports ...

— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various