"No, don't be sorry. I am learning many new phrases of English here," he told her with an enthusiastic smile. He'd spent a lot of time at home translating academic papers to and from English, but the terms there were nothing like the slang he was picking up now. "Pop a squat- I will remember," he nodded.
"I'm from St. Petersburg. Russia," he explained, a fact which was probably emphasised by him drinking vodka as if it were water. "Nice to meet you, too, Melinda Halliwell," he told her. "And you? America?" he asked of her.