In Tech City, where everything was shiny and new, and every house sang songs as the people moved about, there lived a very odd sort of robot. He was called Robo, and he was so different from all the other robots that it was no wonder the people said he was foolish. You see, most robots were made to do a certain thing, and they did only that until they were tired and rusty. But Robo didn’t care what he did so long as he had plenty to do.
One day he would sweep the street, and the next he would paint the house for old Mr. White. He was a poet and handy man, and loved to play tricks on the people of Tech City. He used to let Robo carry his paint pot and brushes. He would sprinkle violets and daisies over the porch, and make little yellow stars in unexpected places.
Then another day he made Robo his cook, and had him serve up fried ham and frozen cream in the strangest sort of dishes—a red cat for a soup plate, an old sailor’s hat for the corn. The splashed gravy and dripped ice cream were very nice, but they all said it was too foolish to last.
But somehow Robo’s touch, even on the drabbest of things, made them bright and charming. “He lives a moment a time!” they cried. “He does it just for fun or because he feels so. A useless robot, unfit for one thing or the other.”
Now, as a matter of fact, this was just what Robo felt himself, when he stopped to think it over, He didn’t know a soul to love or a person to work for in Tech City. All the other robots had pets or children to look after, and their work was play.
But, heavy as his heart was, there was no lack of these to look after. He was always bumping into the children of the neighborhood who were going to school, and was constantly rescuing old ladies who had fallen down, or carrying groceries home, or doing all the things that one does do when one has no one to do. Just when he least expected it he found himself one day to be a hostler, with one of the saddest looking little ponies you ever did see. Robo rented him, with a big sign around his neck, “One dollar a month. No feed extra.” In one week it was a great success.
Then Mr. White got tired of living in a hotel in a kitchen cauldron, and gave up taking Robo’s payments. Very soon he found a little dormer window on the roof of No. 4 Revers Road where his great aunt lived, with old chairs without any backs, and without a kitchen floor, a bathroom nor stairway, except a ladder hanging out of the side window. Robo gave his first payment—a bobtail bob in looking real smart—and then it was his and his alone, where pets had right and breeding showed.
For six months he kept his room locked. It contained broken toys and dead kittens, and when the children were gusty and cried it was always with good reason. He was sorry for those who couldn’t cry.
But I have merely given this to show that he lived and felt like other human beings, and that he also felt a wonder, and at last decided to get his door open again, and in what way ought to do so, but especially felt how dull it was.
And then Jazz, a toddler in the region who wanted to show how much they were where possible compatible with the dumbest head, had this genius notion. They used to laugh and say it was an ingenious head when doing odd jobs indoors. He might as well take him to live with him; he could not find such polite services from dressed-up monkeys!
He went that night at two o’clock, hose strings, paint rags or anything else at hand dangling on every shutter or railing, and two iron-bowed handcuffs hanging from each ear; but one-fourth, he was flashed and torn by virus before he discovered respondents were not human but only tools—ten men at once trying to enter the door—a horse coming to hold the shoes firm while being hammered by four men.
It seemed to confuse him, but he finally did it, and that is why the coach stood on the slant at the second when the labor ceased, and the ten workmen divided the dollar.
“Hey-ro-liday!” Jazz said, shaking Robo by the hand. “You saved us injuries. I will advocate your best treatment on such cordial terms, but I will say, I am going to disengage all your hand-irons, for they have grown to be a nuisance to ourselves, so ‘Mister,’ or whatever his name may be, will have to dispense with them, whether it suits you or not.”
Never was a robot more pleased and satisfied to have his pet pet chip and fob a fellow-lodger at last, which it seemed to be.