He could have predicted Breen’s smiles and shrugs, and the fake, rolling laugh that he retailed. Scene Two would roll out just as predictably. That was when Breen would wear that that put-upon look, the smile of regret that he excelled in. It would be followed up with an apology for being “so busy.”

The hardest bit to take would be Breen’s attempt to be the common man, a hapless beleaguered gobshite, sighing that he was “running around like a fart in a bottle,” or he “didn’t know whether he was coming or going.” Then, Breen’s twinkling eyes would almost disappear when he put out his fake smile. Fanning wondered if anyone had ever told Breen how fat he was getting these past few years, how… fulsome was the word, Fanning thought then, the exact word. He was pleased the word came to him so easily.

Fanning didn’t mind Breen’s act itself as a piece, say, of theatre. After all, Breen the impressario was a character study in his own right. He would find his way into a Dermot Fanning script soon enough. But the sting in it all was that Breen assumed that Dermot Fanning was stupid enough to be taken in by it all.

Fanning felt the injustice glow stronger in his chest, and so he distracted himself by beginning a careful, neutral study of the buildings around him. More than their lines or even shapes, he observed their textures and shadows and tones, all the things that escaped day-to-day notice. Behind the crane swivelling slowly overhead somewhere near Capel Street were light-grey clouds, like a cannonade from some long-ago naval battle. The sky to the south was parchment — no: pearl.

The cobblestone lane was new. The old one had been torn up last year and had been meticulously replaced. Brickwork had been repointed, pipes proudly exposed. Copies of recently discovered daguerrotypes of Dublin from the 1840s and 1850s had been placed in salient windows of the restaurant.