If he gets cross and puts his shoulder to the massive oaken door, we know there is going to be work next morning for the carpenter.

Maybe he is a party belonging to the Middle Ages.

Then when he reluctantly challenges the crack fencer of Europe to a duel, our instinct is to call out and warn his opponent.
"You silly fool," one feels one wants to say; "why, it is the hero of the novel! You take a friend's advice while you are still alive, and get out of it anyway--anyhow.

Apologize--hire a horse and cart, do something.
You're not going to fight a duel, you're going to commit suicide." If the hero is a modern young man, and has not got a father, or has only something not worth calling a father, then he comes across a library--anybody's library does for him.

He passes Sir Walter Scott and the "Arabian Nights," and makes a bee-line for Plato; it seems to be an instinct with him.