(urth) PIke/Oreb

[Andrew Mason]

Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
> The difficulty, of course, is knowing when he's doing it and when he's not.? I see that several people have felt he's doing something unusual in this passage, which certainly strengthens your argument.

There's something unusual, but it may just be because Silk is unusual.
He has a tendency to go off into long ruminations like this, and while
this certainly gives a good opportunity for hiding clues, it doesn't
mean there has to be a clue every time - it wouldn't be proper hiding
if there were. The question makes sense, and so does the answer. What
doesn't make so much sense is Silk worrying about it - but this is
Silk. So the passage helps to establish something both about social
relations and about Silk's character (which we're very new to at this
point). This, of course, doesn't stop it being also a clue, but it's
not clear that it must be.