Arcturus was accustomed to honest critique of his flying, and so he readily agreed when Richard said that he wasn't quite good at it yet, and smiled when he heard that it was a good start nonetheless. If he'd made an utter mess of things, he expected he'd be told to try again right away to correct it, not offered tea and biscuits. 'Shall we have a short break?' he suggested. 'It's rather a lot to learn all at once, and tea is usually good and fortifying.'
The idea of taking the modern broom back with him delighted him. 'I'll take good care of it, I give you my word on that, and I'll only use it for practicing what you've shown me.' He didn't want to accidentally damage it by flying it all over Preya the way he did with his own broom.
On the subject of the book he was rather less enthusiastic. Arcturus tended to avoid reading as far as possible. Schoolbooks were dull, for the most part, and so were those dreadful moralistic books his aunt kept giving him. He reasoned, however, that if the price of learning all about these advanced broom enchantments was having to read a little, he was doing quite well out of things, and so he nodded. 'Thank you. I'll keep it safe in my room. We don't study broom enchantments at school at all back home, the arithmancy is all...very theoretical.' His grimace at the notion showed very well what he thought of it. 'Working on a real broom sounds a much more interesting project.' He paused, thinking for a moment. 'I say, don't you have flying lights for at night in your time? Real lanterns wouldn't do, of course, but you can conjure up a little light to hover above your head for when it gets dark.'