“Excuse me.” He picked out a black velvet hat, wide-brimmed. The hat. The sort that for centuries, from musketeers, to Napoleon, to the tricorne and onwards, was all really just one hat, crushed into various styles to make hundreds of different kinds of hats. The kind of hat Jacques favoured when he could manage to hold onto one long enough for it to get comfortable, before losing it in some ridiculous manner. He always blamed Handy for the losses of his hats, which was rather unfair in his view. It was not Handy’s fault that his life was absurd. The girl looked up and let out a very ungriffon-like squeak of surprise that almost made Handy laugh. He decided to press on through her shock, not in any mood to dissuade fears at the time.