Forget around them, I’ll just go through them. [ A pause, as he reconsiders the veritable mountain of books in Claude’s room at any given moment. ] Or over them, more likely. Besides. Is there even an ‘around’ them in the first place? Somehow I doubt it.

[ Will he never not torment Claude over the disastrous state of his room? Unlikely. Especially when it exasperates him so. ]

I can’t decide, honestly. But if you want to distract me more, you can tell me all about this expertise with knots you’ve been hiding from me. How could you? Think of all the fun ways we could have been using that knowledge all this time!