When Mabel had finished with me at last I stuck a needle into him, and he laughed, accepting the stab as a compliment.
A strange thing is how men settle down after excitement.

Birds do the same thing.

A hawk swoops down on a hedgerow; there is a great flutter, followed by sudden silence.

A minute later the chattering begins again, without any reference to one of their number being torn in the plunderer's beak.

And so we; even Grim loosened up and gossiped about Feisul and the already ancient days when Feisul was the up-to-date Saladin leading Arab hosts to victory.
But there was an even stranger circumstance than that.