"Ah," By responds, slumping bonelessly back, "you are a charitable sort indeed. Protecting me from my own silverware. Helping me search for what I've lost. My word."

He lowers his eyelashes, then, and regards the boy from under them. He doesn't have the look of a Barrayaran, nor the accent, and yet it seems to Byerly that there is something quite Vorish about his expression. You always could spot a man with his nose in the air. "With that sort of charity, you must be someone truly worth knowing. Let's get acquainted. Byerly, at your service."