"What, then?" He just can't imagine Quin even knowing about the dreary, dusty grind of Lancashire's Nelson--the lines of threadbare linens and smalls under greasy grey skies, the bonewhitewash of walls scrubbed with rawboned fingers that will bygod keep the floor clean enough to eat off even if the state of the cellar makes it nearly a moot point, the dull eyes, the scraping out of fires to gather ash for cheap, harsh soap, the reek of gin and beer and the stains in gritty alleys of what they turn into, the surly slump of weary shoulders, the soft, wary tread of wives' feet.
"I would expect you of all my colleagues to be able to distinguish between a slavic and germanic accent," he says, still sulking. He'd been playing off of Karkaroff's. "We all eat bugs, you know. They're used in a wide variety of potions, and also in Muggle food dyes." He pauses to let that sink in, and adds, "Fortunately, although I don't tell my students this until after their OWLS, one can usually, as I prefer to, find a substitute." Another pause. "Usually." Nodding gravely, "Assuming that my digestion has settled by the full, we'll go then. I developed a practice of rewarding myself for not sabotaging the damned potion two years after your departure, when we had an unusually insufferable werewolf teaching Defense."
"Poppy's discrete," he mentions, "and I expect to be doing business with her on a regular basis, and possibly Pomona and Filius as well, to some extent, for whom the same may be said. It might be well for contact to be initiated between the two of you without accident creating unnecessary dramatics. I would be willing to speak to her first." A quick half-smile. "No. And no, I do not harumph. Here--" He pulls out a card from the desk, hands it to Q. "I doubt their office is connected to the telephone--or telegraph, for that matter--although I believe there's one in the parlor, and I have no owl, either. Minerva seems able to access rental owls, however, and since the war it's become possible to use the muggle postal service to send mail through to Owleries in several counties, although naturally that slows matters down somewhat."
I never remember who I've told what to. n,n;; He probably didn't.