I poked them gently. “Look, either you tell me, or I’ll tell everyone that your secret passion is Athenian poetry and if people want to get on your good side, they should insist, no matter your protests, on bringing you to special poetry-writing evenings where everyone gets together and talks about trochaic hexameters. And people will believe it, because you’re so sweary and pragmatic: they’ll all go, Aha, so it’s a front to hide the soft and fluffy soul within, we knew it all along, we shall henceforth communicate only in epic metaphor.”
