"'Can he hear?' I asked.
"'That will come,' he said.
"He seemed so sure of himself that I was almost inclined to believe him until of course I remembered all the others who had been so sure of themselves. That seems to be a characteristic of my queer people—each one has an unlimited belief in his own particular delusion.
"Well, Maugham put Herman through his paces and it was certainly novel to watch. He asked me not to write anything about Herman for publication and I didn't. I figured I owed him that courtesy. He had great plans for Herman, he explained—he meant Herman to be his general factotum and planned to perfect the robot as the housewife's dream. If I'd had to guess I'd have said he might accomplish as much.
"Well, I examined Herman inside and out. It was uncanny, the resemblance he bore to a human being. It was Maugham's conceit to duplicate as nearly as possible the organs and characteristics of the human body. That still left room for the complicated machinery necessary. The skeleton was of steel with a plastic overlay carefully moulded into the shape of a man approximately six feet high and weighing about two hundred pounds.
"Over the entire structure he had stretched a kind of plastic-rubber made to resemble human skin in color and texture. There were doors in both front and back of course—to allow Maugham to service his robot, inspect the machinery, charge and replace the batteries, oil the parts and so forth."
"He could almost have patented that as a bachelor's companion," I suggested.
Harrigan took another draught of sherry and smiled reminiscently. "His enthusiasm was infectious until I got out into the open air and started thinking about Herman's practicability. Then of course Herman slid back to his proper plane and I saw Maugham in a more balanced perspective. He struck me then as another little man with ideas just a trifle too big for them.
"In the ordinary course of events I wouldn't have seen Maugham again but about a month later he came up with another of those military valuable gadgets and I went out to get a propaganda story for Army Intelligence. I thought at the time that Maugham looked a little harassed but he was as co-operative as before when he knew what I wanted and he came through with just the right stuff for Army Intelligence.
"After we had finished I naturally asked, 'And how's Herman?'