Project Gutenberg's Service with a Smile, by Charles Louis Fontenay

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Title: Service with a Smile

Author: Charles Louis Fontenay

Illustrator: Paul Orban

Release Date: October 31, 2009 [EBook #30371]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: _Illustrated by Paul Orban_]

Service
with a
Smile

_Herbert was truly a gentleman
robot. The ladies' slightest
wish was his command...._

BY CHARLES L. FONTENAY

Herbert bowed with a muted clank--indicating he probably needed oiling
somewhere--and presented Alice with a perfect martini on a silver tray.
He stood holding the tray, a white, permanent porcelain smile on his
smooth metal face, as Alice sipped the drink and grimaced.

"It's a good martini, Herbert," said Alice. "Thank you. But, dammit, I
wish you didn't have that everlasting smile!"

"I am very sorry, Miss Alice, but I am unable to alter myself in any
way," replied Herbert in his polite, hollow voice.

He retired to a corner and stood impassively, still holding the tray.
Herbert had found a silver deposit and made the tray. Herbert had found
sand and made the cocktail glass. Herbert had combined God knew what
atmospheric and earth chemicals to make what tasted like gin and
vermouth, and Herbert had frozen the ice to chill it.

"Sometimes," said Thera wistfully, "it occurs to me it would be better
to live in a mud hut with a real man than in a mansion with Herbert."

The four women lolled comfortably in the living room of their spacious
house, as luxurious as anything any of them would have known on distant
Earth. The rugs were thick, the furniture was overstuffed, the paintings
on the walls were aesthetic and inspiring, the shelves were filled with
booktapes and musictapes.

Herbert had done it all, except the booktapes and musictapes, which had
been salvaged from the wrecked spaceship.

"Do you suppose we'll ever escape from this best of all possible manless
worlds?" ask