Dr. Fitzhugh looked at his watch. “I have time for one more, thanks.”
By the time Mike had returned with the cups, he had recalled where he had heard the name Fitzhugh before.
“It just occurred to me,” he said as he sat down. “You must be Dr. Morris Fitzhugh.”
Fitzhugh nodded. “That’s right.” He wore a perpetually worried look, which made his face look more wrinkled than his fifty years of age would normally have accounted for. Mike was privately of the opinion that if Fitzhugh ever really tried to look worried, his ears would meet over the bridge of his long nose.
“I’ve read a couple of your articles in the Journal,” Mike explained, “but I didn’t connect the name until I saw you. I recognized you from your picture.”
Fitzhugh smiled, which merely served to wrinkle his face even more.
Mike the Angel spent the next several minutes feeling the man out, then he went on to explain what had happened with Snookums out in the foyer, which launched Dr. Fitzhugh into an explanation.
“He didn’t want help, of course; he was merely conducting an experiment. There are many areas of knowledge in which he is as naïve as a child.”
Mike nodded. “It figures. At first I thought he was just a remote-control tool, but I finally saw that he was a real, honest-to-goodness robot. Who gave him the idea to make such an experiment as that?”
“No one at all,” said Dr. Fitzhugh. “He’s built to make up his own experiments.”