What the devil was he doing in that galley?

This line is commonly cited in English as a comic outburst of bafflement—an exasperated “what on earth was he thinking?” In Molière’s farces, such a question typically functions as a punchline that crystallizes the absurdity of a character’s predicament and the irrational chain of events that produced it. The mention of a “galley” evokes forced labor and humiliation, heightening the disproportion between the speaker’s incredulity and the grim image invoked, which is part of the humor. As a standalone quotation, it survives largely as a shorthand for incredulous frustration at someone’s inexplicable decision.