metcalfe chatted briefly with the american ambassador , who told an anecdote , obviously well honed from countless retellings , about how a toilet at his residence at spaso house had gone on the fritz and they could n't get anyone to fix it , and so the ambassador had had his telephone operator call the deputy commissar of foreign affairs , andrei vyshinsky , to say that if the toilet was n't fixed within one hour , the ambassador was going over to the commissariat to use vyshinsky 's .