"That was flippant of me," Biffy supposed, catching the faint change in Krem's tone. Pithy might be the better word. Or maybe the word came to mind because he was carefully affixing a tiny lemon to the hat. "And not very much the same, beyond the shallow comparisons."

Krem's way, he thought, might be better, for all that Biffy had loved Lord Akeldama dearly and had accepted from the first that he would be one of several ornaments.

"I didn't say it to criticize, though clearly what I intended is not what I said."

This was why he always brought tea to people first.