[Salvio has learned: there is little point in attempting to talk over Poppell when she gets going, or indeed to break in to the conversation with any contribution. It is more a lecture.
As she talks, Salvio sifts through the jumble of papers and forms and envelopes which contain papers and forms of their own, lifting each one in turn as she mentions it to skim, briefly, the contents. Some are weighed down on the corner by heavy wax seals. Most of the receipts are lighter, like the skin of an onion. There is a certain overwhelmed air to his presence. Then again, when is he ever anything but overwhelmed?
And he is listening, earmarking the names that she mentions and the titles which he cross-references to names. Sketching out the scaffolding of this project. At the end of it, he is still looking at a page, this one a very densely-written letter from the person that must be Poppell's solicitor--there is something about the writing that gives it away as a solicitor--but he remarks--]
no subject
As she talks, Salvio sifts through the jumble of papers and forms and envelopes which contain papers and forms of their own, lifting each one in turn as she mentions it to skim, briefly, the contents. Some are weighed down on the corner by heavy wax seals. Most of the receipts are lighter, like the skin of an onion. There is a certain overwhelmed air to his presence. Then again, when is he ever anything but overwhelmed?
And he is listening, earmarking the names that she mentions and the titles which he cross-references to names. Sketching out the scaffolding of this project. At the end of it, he is still looking at a page, this one a very densely-written letter from the person that must be Poppell's solicitor--there is something about the writing that gives it away as a solicitor--but he remarks--]
This is very thorough. I, um. How... How minor?