Voon, said the mattress.
I expect so, said Marvin, and I also expect that you find the idea of a robot with an artificial leg pretty amusing. You should tell your friends Zem and Zem when you see them later; they’ll laugh, if I know them, which I don’t of course except insofar as I know all organic life forms, which is much better than I would wish to. Ha, but my life is but a box of wormgears.
He stomped around again in his tiny circle, around his thin steel peg-leg which revolved in the mud but seemed otherwise stuck.
But why do you just keep walking round and round? said the mattress.
Just to make the point, said Marvin, and continued, round and round.
Consider it made, my dear friend, flurbled the mattress, consider it made.
Just another million years, said Marvin, just another quick million. Then I might try it backwards. Just for the variety, you understand.
The mattress could feel deep in his innermost spring pockets that the robot dearly wished to be asked how long he had been trudging in this futile and fruitless manner, and with another quiet flurble he did so.
Oh, just over the one-point-five-million mark, just over, said Marvin airily. Ask me if I ever get bored, go on, ask me.
The mattress did.
Marvin ignored the question, he merely trudged with added emphasis.
I gave a speech once, he said suddenly, and apparently unconnectedly. You may not instantly see why I bring the subject up, but that is because my mind works so phenomenally fast, and I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number.
Er, five, said the mattress.
Wrong, said Marvin. You see?
The mattress was much impressed by this and realized that it was in the presence of a not unremarkable mind. It willomied along its entire length, sending excited little ripples through its shallow algae-covered pool.
It gupped.