The formal air of everyone else in this place had evidently rubbed of on Casimir, yet he also spoke with wit and complexity. “You don’t talk much, do you?” he asked. “Cat got your tongue?” “Well,I’m not really talkative with people I don’t know well.And it isn’t very often that I meet English boys in the middle of the night,” I replied,in spite of myself.Casimir nodded. “Very well then.If you don’t want to talk, then that’s your choice.I probably never will have the oppurtunity to get to know another child from the outside world again.I guess I’ll just lay here,in the sickroom, counting the tassles on my canopy.But please, don’t worry about me.I’ll be fine.” Then he coughed a bit for dramatic effect.He was trying to make me feel guilty! “Okay, okay. Everything is just weird, is all. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you, it’s just, well, I doubt you’d like to listen to a stranger go on and on about their life story,” I replied. “Actutally, I would. I’ve got nowhere else to be,” he said. “I’m all ears.”