"It's immaterial to me what you think," the cabinet told him. "But if you thought of yourself as a playmate..."
"That's a hot one," Bishop said.
"Infinitely better," said the cabinet, "than thinking of yourself as a puppy dog."
"So that's what they want me to think."
"They don't care," the cabinet said. "It all is up to you. It was a mere suggestion, sir."
So, all right, it was a mere suggestion.
So, all right, they were playmates and not pets at all.
The kids of Kimon inviting the dirty, ragged, runny-nosed urchins from across the tracks to play with them.
Better to be an invited kid, perhaps, than an imported dog.
But even so, it was the children of Kimon who had engineered it all - who had set up the rules for those who wished to come to Kimon, who had built the hotel, had operated it and furnished it with the progressively more luxurious and more enticing rooms, who had found the so-called jobs for humans, who had arranged the printing of the credits.