Tellingly, Seoraj grins at The Horse as she makes the note, as if to say, is that so, we are going to be friends, you and I. "I'll knock the price down if you let me name him," he says, in the flippant way that implies he is (as it happens) a pretty whimsically fun kind of guy.

(He'd also keep his word if she were of a mind to take him up on it, but he doesn't give the impression he thinks she will.)

Instead of drawing out the joke with awkwardly waggling eyebrows or an expectation that she find him as amusing as he finds himself, he sets to work. He'll direct his chatter to the horse as he does, when he's not too occupied for it.