I was out for a jog with my mechanical dog Rufus when he returned from one of his romps with a curiously large piece of clockwork in his pneumatic jaw.

"Drop it here boy! Drop it!"

Rufus looked at me sideways then turned and ran.

"Drat that canine contraption! Cicero, would you be so good to as, sigh. Retrieve the dog?"

After an exaggerated glass eye roll, my faithful mechanical manservant Cicero jogged off in the direction of the decrepit old mansion that had captured the imagination of my horological hound.

For instance, I miss jogging with my mechanical butler Cicero and my mechanical dog Rufus. Oh their jolly jingle jangle!

Really I’m used to having servants. Mechanical ones.