“He walked from the chancery over to the public part of the embassy and climbed to the third floor, where the ambassador had installed a water cooler, just outside Madame Dupin’s office. Mercier always took a cup of water when he happened to find himself there, not caring so very much for the water, but liking, despite his forty-six years, the bubble that floated to the top and made a noise.”
– Alan Furst in The Spies of Warsaw (2008)
And really now, who among us doesn’t, despite our more than 46 (or 56) years?