"Yes!" This was going so well. He finishes his cursory sniff inspection--nothing at all to worry about here, just books--and he takes the new stack that Flynn pushes over to him, lifting a particularly hefty tome and half-dropping it heavily onto the table.

"Right! Cross-referencing! I'm gonna reference these books so much. I'm gonna gather the hell out of this info!"

Enthusiasm? He has it, new friend! Much education that involved research, he does not! What does cross-referencing even mean? Whatever, he'll just do the paper thing.