Smiley peered up at the affable face, wondering if this man could possibly be as colossal a booby as he appeared. Years of circulating amongst Ann's various extended relations, to say nothing of his long career at the Circus, had taught him to never underestimate the vast stupidity of which the aristocracy was capable, but this lesson was always balanced with his innate distrust of others, and the awareness that stupidity could always be an act.

"Very well. Perhaps your man would be interested in Leibniz?" He turned toward the shelf he had been rearranging and his gaze lighted upon a rather foxed copy of the Confessio philosophi, which he carefully extracted and offered to Wooster. "A contemporary of Spinoza's."