The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or
a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving
you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious
television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself;
Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming
an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world
expected you to believe.

                                   * * *

	He believed in a door. He must find that door. The door was the
way to... to...

	The Door was The Way.

	Good.

	Capital letters were always the best way of dealing with things
you didn't have an answer to.

                                   * * *

	``Well,'' he said, ``it's to do with the project which first made
the software incarnation of the company profitable. It was called Reason,
and in its own way it was sensational.''

	``What was it?''

	``Well, it was a kind of back-to-front program. It's funny how
many of the best ideas are just an old idea back-to-front. You see there
have already been several programs written that help you to arrive at
decisions by properly analysing all the relevant facts so that they then
point naturally towards the right decision. The drawback with these is
that the decision which all the properly ordered and analysed facts point
to is not necessarily the one you want.''

	``Yeesesss...'' said Reg's voice from the kitchen.

	``Well, Gordon's great insight was to design a program which
allowed you to specify in advance what decision you wished to reach, and
only then to give it all the facts. The program's task, which it was able
to accomplish with consummate ease, was simply to construct a plausible
series of logical-sounding steps to connect the premises with the
conclusion.

	And I have to say it worked brilliantly. Gordon was able to buy
himself a Porsche almost immediately despite being completely broke and a
hopeless driver. Even his bank manager was unable to find fault with his
reasoning. Even when he wrote it off three weeks later.''

	``Heavens. And did the program sell very well?''

	``No. We never sold a single copy.''

	``You astonish me. It sounds like a real winner to me.''

	``It was,'' said Richard hesitantly. ``The entire project was
bought up, lock, stock and barrel, by the Pentagon. The deal put
WayForward on a very sound financial foundation. Its moral foundation, on
the other hand, is not something I wound want to trust my weight to. I've
recently been analysing a lot of the arguments put forward in favour of
the Star Wars project, and if you know what you're looking for, the
pattern of the agorithms is very clear.''

                                   * * *

	Richard went out and loked up the stairs and then came back in.

	``A horse,'' repeated Richard.

	``Yes,'' said Reg.

	Richard went out and looked up the stairs and then came back in.

	``A horse?'' he said again.

	``Yes, it is,'' said the Professor. ``Wait -'', he motioned to
Richard, who was about to go again and investigate - ``let it be. It won't
be long.''

	Richard stared in disbelief. ``You say there's a horse in your
bathroom, and all you can do there is stand there naming Beatles songs?''

                                   * * *

	The phone rang. He stopped the tape and answered it, then almost
dropped the phone like an electric eel as he realised what he was doing.
Hardly daring to breathe, he held the telephone to his ear.

	"Rule One in housebreaking," said a voice. "Never answer the,
telephone when you're in the middle of a job. Who are you supposed to be,
for heaven's sake?"

	Richard froze. It was a moment or two before he could find where
he had put his voice.

	"Who is this?" he demanded at last in a whisper.

	"Rule Two," continued the voice. "Preparation. Bring the right
tools.  Bring gloves. Try to have the faintest glimmering of an idea of
what you're about before you start dangling from window ledges in the
middle of the night.

	"Rule Three. Never forget Rule Two."

	"Who is this?" exclaimed Richard again.

	The voice was unperturbed. "Neighbourhood Watch," it said. "If you
just look out of the back window you'll see..."

	Trailing the phone, Richard hurried over to the window and looked
out. A distant flash startled him.

	"Rule Four. Never stand where you can be photographed.

	"Rule Five... Are you listening to me, MacDuff?"

	"What? Yes..." said Richard in bewilderment. "How do you know me?"

	"Rule Five. Never admit to your name."

	Richard stood silent, breathing hard.

	"I run a little course," said the voice, "if you're interested..."

	Richard said nothing.

	"You're learning," continued the voice, "slowly, but you're
learning. If you were learning fast you would have put the phone down by
now, of course. But you're curious - and incompetent - and so you don't. I
don't run a course for novice burglars as it happens, tempting though the
idea is. I'm sure there would be grants available. If we have to have them
they may as well be trained.

                                   * * *

	``I suppose it would be pointless saying I'm sorry at this
point,'' Richard called out.

	"You bet," said Susan, sweeping back out of the kitchen again. She
looked at him with her eyes flashing, and actually stamped her foot.

	"Honestly, Richard," she said, "You're just going to say you
forgot again.  How can you have the gall to stand there with two arms, two
legs and a head as if you're a human being? This is behaviour that a bout
of amoebic dysentery would be ashamed of. I bet that even the very lowest
form of dysentery amoeba shows up to take its girlfriend out for a quick
trot around the stomach lining once in a while. Well, I hope you had a
lousy evening."

                                   * * *

	``Richard, what's the matter?''

	``Nothing, Kate. Er, I've just read the most astounding thing.''

	``Really, what are you reading?''

	``Well, the telephone directory, in fact ...''

	``Really? I must rush out and buy one. Have the film rights
gone?''

	``Look, sorry, Kate, can I get back to you? I don't know where
Gordon is at the moment and -''

	``Don't worry. I know how it is when you can't wait to turn the
next page. They always keep you guessing till the end, don't they? It must
have been Zbigniew that did it. Have a good weekend.''

                                   * * *

	``Yes, expenses were, well, expensive in the Bahamas, Mrs.  
Sauskind, it is in the nature of expenses to be so. Hence the name.''

                                   * * *

	``Luckily,'' he went on, ``you have come to exactly the right
place with your interesting problem, for there is no such word as
'impossible' in my dictionary. In fact,'' he added, brandishing the abused
book, ``everything between 'herring' and 'marmalade' seems to be
missing.''

                                   * * *