"Visitor!" The door-announcer cried again in its one-word recorded glee.
A large android walked in ahead of a short, perspiring man. The android announced, "I am Ulysses, the greatest android ever produced. This poor creature is my old, worn out owner. I am here to find a new, strong, vigorous owner. Which one of you is interested?"
The door-announcer sang out again and again. In two hours the little apartment was jammed with human beings and inhuman androids. The interviewing process no longer involved Raymond alone. It became an interwoven, complex affair.
The confused, excited melee continued on through the night. It lasted all through the following day and night, and on into the day after, when the last guest left with his militaristic android counting cadence in a loud grating voice.
Raymond mixed a strong drink and collapsed into his chair, muttering to himself, "How utterly, utterly hopeless. There wasn't a single android that didn't have some glaring incurable idiosyncrasy that could drive Paula and me completely out of our minds as easily as our present mechanized helpmate." He appealed to the cracked ceiling. "What am I going to do?"
His android said, "You look like a tired, fat old man."
"Shut up."
The android stared at Raymond and asked, "What fiendish, diabolical, sure-fire scheme have you devised in that tiny, inadequate human brain of yours now, sir?"