style="overflow: hidden; color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; border: medium none;">The restaurant is empty when Charles Murray and I sit down. It is still empty when we leave 90 minutes later. Nobody else dines in between. “I have to say that we are the only patrons here and it is absolutely terrific,” Murray tells the waiter. Our venue is Al Tiramisu, a well-hidden Italian restaurant close to Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. It’s a public holiday, which accounts for its quietness.