Twelve
The Registry was presided over by a woman who looked like a strict nurs-ery governess. Her hair was rolled into a rather hideous¹ bun and she worevery efficient-looking pince-nez. She nodded approval as the Bettertonsentered the severe office-like room.
“Ah,” she said. “You’ve brought Mrs. Betterton. That’s right.”
Her English was perfectly² idiomatic³ but it was spoken with a stilted⁴ pre-cision which made Hilary believe that she was probably a foreigner. Actu-ally, her nationality was Swiss. She motioned Hilary to a chair, opened adrawer beside her and took out a sheaf of forms upon which she com-menced to write rapidly. Tom Betterton said rather awkwardly:
“Well then, Olive, I’ll leave you.”
“Yes please, Dr. Betterton. It’s much better to get through all the formal-ities straight away.”
Betterton went out, shutting the door behind him. The Robot, for as suchHilary thought of her, continued to write.
“Now then,” she said, in a businesslike way. “Full name, please. Age.
Where born. Father and mother’s names. Any serious illnesses. Tastes.
Hobbies. List of any jobs held. Degrees at any university. Preferences infood and drink.”
It went on, a seemingly endless catalogue. Hilary responded vaguely⁵, al-most mechanically. She was glad now of the careful priming she had re-ceived from Jessop. She had mastered it all so well that the responsescame automatically, without having to pause or think. The Robot said fi-nally, as she made the last entry:
“Well, that seems to be all for this department. Now we’ll hand you overto Doctor Schwartz for medical examination.”
“Really!” said Hilary. “Is all this necessary? It seems most absurd.”
“Oh, we believe in being thorough, Mrs. Betterton. We like to haveeverything down in the records. You’ll like Dr. Schwartz very much. Thenfrom her you go on to Doctor Rubec.”
Dr. Schwartz was fair and amiable⁶ and female. She gave Hilary a metic-ulous physical examination and then said:

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