"No one is burning the Broomsticks down," Ford said, a little annoyed — both with Wye saying Fortitude in that tone and at basically everything about Constable Woodcroft's continued engagement in this conversation. It wasn't helping anyone to tell Wye he just had to keep this up until he found a likely enough fellow and all his incendiary desires would be realized. In Ford's experience the best strategy to de-escalate with Wye was to distract him — for someone who had been around so many hundreds of years, he didn't have the longest of attention spans, and he was so genuinely interested in so many things that it wasn't hard to find a subject that would do the trick.

"Oh, you know what?" Ford said to the spirit, struck with an idea. "I'd bet this is actually the best place to find an audience for your songs. If you can write one on a subject other than burning the place down." Which he could, if he'd come up with something that good so quickly. Ford didn't have a vast experience with drunkenness personally, but he'd interacted with enough intoxicated men than he could imagine they would be particularly amused by a spirit spontaneously bursting into song.

---