The Case of the Burrowing Robot. John R. Erickson

was hard work. I could see that it was wearing poor Slim down. I mean, he was dripping sweat and muttering hateful things under his breath. Minutes passed. An hour. More minutes passed. The temperature began to rise.

      A lot of your ordinary dogs would have quit, abandoned their master, shut off Boo Hoo, and gone somewhere to take a nap. Not us, fellers. We were the elite snorks of the . . . the elite troops of the Slurry Divizzzzzzzzz . . . the elite troops of the Security Division, shall we say, and sleeping wasn’t an option for uzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz . . .

      . . . wasn’t an option for us. We had a job to do, an important job, and that job required that we stay awhop and alurk . . . awake and alert, that is. Yes, the temptation to drift off into . . . snerk, muff, mork, honky wigglewort . . .

      . . . the temptation to drift off into sleep was very powdery, but so was our sniss of loyalburble to our . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.