A slight, ostensibly private, smile springs to Alan's lips at the comment, but he carries on with his reading, withstanding (for once) the temptation to call the man's attention to the fact that he's lumped himself in with the general public. (While he's yet to place the other man's voice, and while he may lack Mycroft's unsparing, unerring eye for detail, Alan simply cannot fathom the owner of that suit waiting in line to see The Forty-Year-Old Virgin.)

"I wonder," he says at length, lifting his eyes from the page he's just turned, "if you might indulge me."