He lay back in the long grass and contemplated the clouds.
"You should have been a Chinese soldier of fortune," she said.
He threw another little clod at Stanley and struck him on the head.
"You are the most scientifically unbearable person in the world," she said.
Stanley came back to see his master and to assure himself that the clump on the head was not intended as a sign of serious displeasure. Hawker took the dog's long ears and tried to tie them into a knot.
"And I don't see why you so delight in making people detest you," she continued.
Having failed to make a knot of the dog's ears, Hawker leaned back and surveyed his failure admiringly. "Well, I don't," he said.
"You do."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do. You just say the most terrible things as if you positively enjoyed saying them."