"As you like," he says. Wrong or right, he's got no way of knowing- but he knows better than to press.

"I think, at this point, the Americans have a tradition of saying 'other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?'" Quinn notes as the water order materialises. "Since I doubt either of us gets the reference properly, shall we agree to put the last bit of the conversation to one side and come up with something else?"