[They would almost laugh; it is, after all, very funny, in its own way.]

I am inclined to agree with your better. [This is Adam's title now. Apparently.] The dead should not handle the dead, Mr. Lynch. I would think you would know that rather well.

[Have they not made this transparent? They are dead as a doornail back home. They have quite the arsenal of jokes, it turns out, about kids who slept in the soil.]