Bertie was seriously beginning to wonder if Natalie hadn't told him wrong about these powers he was meant to have. Fat lot of good they seemed to do most of the time. He shot a glance over his shoulder as he considered legging it. This man was making him incredibly anxious, and Bertie's Beast was beginning to claw at him. It would be so easy to let that deal with fending off the angry Mr. Waters.

Of course, that might set him off, and then they'd be a pair of monsters running crazy about the village. Bertie reins in the increasingly powerful urge to lash out at the other man, to break him. To bend him to a will that should be far away and above his.

"No. No! I mean yes! Yes, I'm sure!" Surely a man in a suit wouldn't pursue him if Bertie took to wing. That would require divesting himself of the top half of his oufit, though. And Bertie also wasn't entirely sure it would work. He hadn't tried to form his wings since he'd been transformed. His Lamb powers seemed to work, though. "Sh-she's an absolute ungrateful wretch of a girl."

That... might not have been the best piece of opinion to use in evidence of his lack of interest. "But don't, um... I've got terrible opinions. 'Bertram,' they say, 'have you got an opinion on that girl?'

"'Just so,' I reply, cocking the old chapeau at a doggy angle, 'she makes Stiffy Byng look like a regular angel.'

'Chuh!' they return, with not a little feeling. 'We knew better than to ask you, you chump!'"