The first time he saw Gilbert run by, he had been confused but unconcerned. A lot of things were going on that he didn't have time to understand, and people were always a huge portion of that list anyway. Much easier to work on his magic, which was what he was doing. He was seated on the floor of the kitchen, chalk in hand as he sketches out his thoughts, mostly in magic diagrams and a coded language that only he could read. He was also surrounded by paper, scrawled on with notes. How did he get the paper? Well, he may have, uh, repurposed one of the ledgers in the house. How did he get the ink? Well - how do you think he ended up with blank paper after finding a full ledger??

Said ink was half on him, half on his paper, and half in a little pool slowly growing larger somewhere on his left on the floor, after he had tipped the dish over and completely not noticed it.

It was this little pool of water that was right in Gilbert's way as he came barelling through the kitchens on his second pass.

It was also that moment that Fox realised there was a pool there at all. Not in time to do anything about it, of course. Just in time to go: "Hey--! Wait!!"