So it was that when someone got Joachim started on a relatively serious matter of discussion, Handy, with his back turned, waited for a suitable juncture or lull in Joachim's diatribe to lightly cough into his fist and put words in the bird's mouth. Each time it worked, and as he drank deeper into his cups, Johan’s subject matter got increasingly ridiculous without his knowing. It had started as the king's opinion on the virtues of philosophy and introspective moral thought. He was talking about something involving pigs and trumpets by the time he stopped to wonder why everyone was laughing.