“Did you actually think you might get away with it, and get fed twice?”

—What do you mean? You haven’t fed me once.

“Ah, slipping into the old legal beagle sentence-parsing mode . . . no, I haven’t fed you, but you have been fed, and I have the note from She With Whom You Abide to prove it.”

Lewis is silent, but I can tell he’s trying to figure out his next move.

—I didn’t want to disappoint you.

“What?”

—You seem to enjoy my morning greetings, and I didn’t see why you should suffer their absence simply because you were a sloth this morning.

“All for my benefit, then?”

—Absolutely.

“No attempt to deceive me?”

—None whatsoever.

“Uh huh.”

—Still, if your appreciation for my performance had included a little nutritive recompense, it would have been rude of me to not accept it.

“No, when you want to be rude, you just fart.”

—I don’t do that on purpose.

“Maybe not, but it’s definitely rude.”

—Biscuits help with my gas problem, you know.

“No, I didn’t know that.”

—At least, they don’t make it worse . . .