Gentle reader, I was present at the Olde Circle yesterday evening when an astonishing thing happened.

“2900! 2900! Who wants to go for 3000? 3000, people. Going once, going twice, gone! The gentleman in the yellow hat has won the antique robot!” A small woman whispered in the auctioneer’s ear. “Ah! Forgive me, I meant to say, the honored hemorphidite in the yellow hat has won the antique robot.”

A shocked titter begin in the upper gallery and spread down to the peons in the lower seats. Who could blame them? No one has seen a hemorphidite in such marvelous surroundings in, well, decades.

A brightly dressed, tall hemorphidite descended from the upper gallery and walked to the stage. But before – she? he? it? – could reach the stage, a woman handed him a trolly with the robot on it, staring sightless ahead. The robots’ power switch was turned to off.

It, we shall say, offered the woman a card; it was a black card, but I regret I was not close enough to see which credit company it preferred.

The honored hemorphidite, gentle reader, gathered the trolly to its impressive bosom and made off with it.

No one knows where it went. All I know, gentle reader, is that somewhere in this city is a hemorphidite with an old robot.

Perhaps it decided to assuage its loneliness with the stark, broken lights of a robot.