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Charles enquired after the functioning of the rest of the staff, so that he could inform Master of any shortcomings or amend Master's planned activities on the estate, of which there were none. House took him through the usual roster. There was Kitchen and its staff of dedicated culinary robots, the majority of which had stood dusty and still for years because Master had a delicate stomach and a limited palate. There was the groundskeeper robot and the garage mechanic. There were the maidservants and the footmen who each took on a fraction of the burden of daily and nightly cleaning required to keep all the many rooms of the vast house in perfect condition. Rooms the master never entered. Rooms awaiting guests who were never invited. But 'might' be, and so the cleaning went on, because House could never be found wanting when human whim suddenly decided that there must be lights and music and cars crunching up the gravel of the drive.

The next items on Charles' queue ticked over as they always did. His master drank tea and complained about a handful of the articles on the tablet, before deleting everything in disgust. Charles listened and made the occasional sound to indicate that he was listening, because the fixity of his features would otherwise give no clue. Then Master complained about the quality of the reading, and declared that he wouldn't keep up his subscriptions, but did not actually instruct Charles to cancel any of them, thereby guaranteeing himself the same disappointing material for the next morning. Charles, should he be required to formulate an opinion, would advance that a certain level of displeasure and ill temper was how Master preferred to begin his morning.

After that, Charles assisted his master into the gown and slippers and laid out the shaving kit while Master drained the last of the tea. After the shaving, he left his master and returned to the wardrobe. In the absence of any particular requests, he laid out the default clothes, should Master decided to get fully dressed today. Most days Master did not, and indeed, Charles had to place the previous day's fresh clothes in the laundry basket for other servants to collect and clean.

The thought that he could leave the same clothes out for multiple days, and thus save the whole household—including himself—unnecessary work, did occur to him, as an old subroutine ran through his duties and made helpful, bouncy suggestions as to how Charles could maximise his workplace efficiency. This happened every day, but Charles had no listed task allowing him to pass such recommendations on, so he stowed the report in the oubliette of his personal storage with all the others. Thus ensuring the subroutine became a part of the overall inefficiency it was trying to clean up.

Next was the garage.

The master kept three vintage cars in perfect condition. Which was to say that the garage's own automata ensured that the vehicles were mechanically functional, and Charles spent a portion of each morning cleaning the interiors. It was, after all, essential that should the master decide to have Charles drive him anywhere, all the cars would be ready on that instant. Charles knew it was essential because his master had informed him of the fact on Charles first arriving at the house. The number of times the master had subsequently decided to have Charles drive him anywhere in any of the three vehicles was five.

Tasks were tasks, however.

Once Charles had completed working over the white leather upholstery of the first car, he—

Charles stopped. Something unexpected had come up. He ran a quick diagnostic of his senses, confirming everything was in working order. He had just finished cleaning the upholstery, and yet it was not clean.

Summoned from its own duties, that part of House concerned with obliging Charles obligingly did so.

Charles replayed his actions. Nothing had changed. He had cleaned the vehicle using the regular materials and routine, and yet now the white interior was streaked and splotched with an inappropriate marbling of red and pink.

Charles queried the nature of the discolouration. Was the kitchen using a new brand of tea with a higher tannin content? House confirmed this was not the case and that the discolouration was not of a colour that one would expect, were the culprit a change of tea.

Charles, additional information, House continued. There is an independent note from the washroom staff that yesterday's day clothes were delivered to them in an unusually stained condition.

Charles considered the clothes he had consigned to the washbasket when laying out fresh clothes for today. He called up images from his memory.