Three characters, all the same, and the whole plot of the rest of the chapter is in them. The third fiend has been overruled by two frightened brothers, and rather than argue he simply agrees three times over, which is the sound of a man who has already thought of something better.

The eldest hears the tone and misreads it exactly. He thinks his brother is sulking. He is in fact being handed a plan, and his response is to offer to do the job himself so as not to impose on an offended colleague. The novel is very good at this — a character reads the surface of a remark correctly and its purpose not at all.