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I dashed into the workshop and punched the recall button as hard as I could, swearing under my breath. How long had this been going on? I punched the button again, viciously, and waited.

George Prime didn’t come out.

It was plenty cold out in the workshop that night and I didn’t sleep a wink. About dawn, out came George Prime, looking like a man with a four-day hangover.

Our conversation got down to fundamentals. George Prime kept insisting blandly that, according to my own directions, he was to pick the first logical opportunity to come out when I buzzed, and that was exactly what he’d done.

I was furious all the way to work. I’d take care of this nonsense, all right. I’d have George Prime rewired from top to bottom as soon as the laboratory could take him.

But I never phoned the laboratory. The bank was calling me when I got to the office. They wanted to know what I planned to do about that check of mine that had just bounced.

“What check?” I asked.

“The one you wrote to cash yesterday—five hundred dollars—against your regular account, Mr. Faircloth.”