"I'll have nothing to do with it!" Noureddin Ali was pained and upset.

Grim had pricked his conceit--had sent thrust home where he kept his susceptibilities.
He blinked, peered this and that way, exchanged glances with the alligator person, and then tucked his legs up under him.
"In me you see a doer!" he announced.

He looked the part.

His lean, pointed nose and beady little eyes were of the interfering, meddling type.

You could not imagine him, like the yellow-eyed ruminant next to him, sitting and waiting ruthlessly for things to happen.