The problem with talking to spies, Archie had found, was the depressing lack of nouns. Pronouns were thick on the ground, and oblique references filled the air like pollen on a spring day. But nouns? Concrete, definitive, dare one say "proper" nouns? They were like snipes, always just around the next corner or hiding under yonder bush. "The others". "The left hand". And always, ever, eternally, "They". Archie had had just about enough of "They" to fill one lifetime.<br/><br/>Which was fitting, since now he apparently had a whole second lifetime to fill.<br/><br/>Resigned to at best a stalemate in any verbal fencing match with the wily Russian, the Viscount took advantage of the only solace provided and filled his glass for the... potentially fourth time. It was becoming more difficult, and less interesting, to keep count. "Very well," he conceded. "I shall wait for our young friends. You know, I don't think I have any young friends. Few friends at all, to be sure, and most of them dottering wrecks." Somewhat sloppily he tore the obituary column from the newspaper, folding it and placing it carefully in a wallet in the company of very little cash. It might be worth a drink or two on a bar bet, some day.