"Martindale had no valid claim on Smiley either professionally or socially. He worked on the flesh side of the Foreign Office and his job consisted of lunching visiting dignitaries whom no one else would have entertained in his woodshed. He was a floating bachelor with a grey mane and that nimbleness which only fat men have. He affected buttonholes and pale suits, and he pretended on the flimsiest of grounds to an intimate familiarity with the large back rooms of Whitehall."
— (fantastic) character description from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre
