“Idle? Yes...boring?” He shook his head, his own beverage for the moment untouched. “Not...not at all! There’s been so much material—atlases and loose maps and accounts—I’ve bought lately that—that it is absolutely the...opposite.” His cadence was, as usual, fast to the point of near-incoherence, with an added dash of uncommon passion. After a beat or so, however, he seemed to realize something that had slipped his mind previously; he once again retreated into reserve. “I am regretful—or sorry, rather. Has your life not been...occupied?”