One day, the American writer and comedian Robert Benchley was out to dinner with his son Nathaniel.

We went to the Trocadero, writes Nathaniel in his memoir of his father Robert Benchley: A Biography. When, in the course of events, we left to go home, he went to a uniformed man at the door and said "Would you get us a taxi, please?"

The man turned round and regarded him icily. "I'm very sorry," he said. "I happen to be a rear admiral in the United States Navy."

"All right, then" said my father. "Get us a battleship."