Gideon hadn't heard the bit about the flobberworm, nor Billie's preceding comment about the troll — which was lucky for them. While he had occasionally been involved in brawls himself, as a young man (and more recently while drinking, though he wouldn't have admitted it to Billie), he had no desire to see one break out in the middle of his shop. He had his reputation as an upstanding businessman to uphold, and his stock of wands to protect, after all.

"Red oak and unicorn hair, then," he decided, tapping the box with the edge of his own wand to make it protrude from the stack, where he could then tug it out of its place. The rows and columns of wand boxes were rather inconvenient when it came to reshelving wands that had not found their way into someone's hand by the end of the day, but given the sheer number of wands he had to have on hand in order to ensure he had something fitting for everyone who came in, there really wasn't any more efficient way to store them. Or, if there was, he hadn't discovered it yet.

Returning to the center of the store, he opened the box and held it out to Mr. Fletcher to take hold of. "It's a very handsome wand," he commented. "My father made it. It's rigid, which means it will be harder to learn with, but stronger once you've mastered it," he explained. He was being a bit more free with his explanations than he might have been normally, since the boy was unaccompanied; he might not have anyone else to tell him about the way these things worked. "Go on and give it a wave."