"Why, sure. You mean they took yours?"
Harp nodded. An idea began to formulate. "Leave your things, will you? I'm desperate! I'm going to see the manager of this madhouse if I have to go down dressed in a sheet. Your clothes would be better than that."
Jake, looking over Harper's skimpy frame, grunted doubtfully. "Maybe you could tie 'em on so they wouldn't slip. And roll up the cuffs. It's okay with me, but just don't lose something when you're down there in that fancy lobby."
Harper looked at his watch. "Time to go. Relax, old man. The robots will be along any minute now. If you're the only man in the room, I'm sure they'll take you. They aren't equipped to figure it out. And don't worry about me. I'll anchor your duds all right."
Harper had guessed right. Gleefully from the doorway of his new room he watched the robots wheel away his equally delighted neighbor for his first treatment. Then he closed the door and began to don Jake's clothing.
The result was unique. He looked like a small boy in his father's clothes, except for the remarkably aged and gnome-like head sticking up on a skinny neck from a collar three sizes too big. And he was shoeless. He was completely unable to navigate in Jake's number twelves. But Harper was a determined man. He didn't even flinch from his image in the mirror. Firmly he stepped over to Jake's telephone. "This is room 618," he said authoritatively. "Send up the elevator for me. I want to go down to the lobby."
He'd guessed right again. "It will be right up, sir," responded the robot operator. Hopefully he stepped out into the hall and shuffled to the elevator.
Only the robots were immune to Harper Breen's progress across the huge suave lobby.
He was a blot on its rich beauty, a grotesque enigma that rooted the other visitors into paralyzed staring groups. Stepping out of the elevator, he had laid a course for the desk which loomed like an island in a moss-gray lake, and now he strode manfully toward it, ignoring the oversize trousers slapping around his stocking feet. Only the robots shared his self control.