Boyd's response is funny, charming, and it all seems to come easy to him. It's a solid handshake, but Bert regrets that he feels a shard of suspicion just as he lets go of it. He's not sure what it is, if he's surprised to find a smooth-talker with social skills among the upstairs neighbors (who, by Bert's count, are not by and large a very friendly bunch) or, hell, maybe the Hambry setting has him on edge after all. Either way, it's diminished just a few seconds later when Boyd offers up a personal anecdote that Bert absolutely buys.

Maybe he just knows exactly the type Boyd means. And Cuthbert's never heard of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, but he knows a joke when he hears one. He cracks a smile.

"My olden-day gunslinger is also tall, also laconic, and I imagine if he really tried all day and all night to feel an emotion, it might be anger. But it might also be hunger. Roland doesn't spend a lot of time on feelings," he summed up quickly. "I'm sure he shed a tear or two when I bit it, but only because he'd've found I'd already smoked all my tobacco before shuffling off. Downright inconsiderate way for a man to die, but I hadn't exactly been planning on it."