9

Only after Sir's death did Andrew begin to wear clothes. He began with an old pair of trousers at first, a pair that George had given him.
   George was married now, and a lawyer. He had joined Feingold's firm. Old Feingold was long since dead, but his daughter had carried on. Eventually the firm's name became Feingold and Martin. It remained so even when the daughter retired and no Feingold took her place. At the time Andrew first put on clothes, the Martin name had just been added to the firm:
   George had tried not to smile the first time he saw Andrew attempting to put on trousers, but to Andrew's eyes the smile was clearly there. George showed Andrew how to manipulate the static charge to allow the trousers to open, wrap about his lower body, and move shut. George demonstrated on his own trousers, but Andrew was quite aware it would take him a while to duplicate that one flowing motion.
   "But why do you want trousers, Andrew? Your body is so beautifully functional it's a shame to cover it, especially when you needn't worry about either temperature control or modesty. And the material :doesn't cling properly-not on metal."
   Andrew held his ground. "Are not human bodies beautifully functional, George? Yet you cover yourselves."
   "For warmth, for cleanliness, for protection, for decorativeness. None of that applies to you."
   "I feel bare without clothes. I feel different, George," Andrew responded.
   "Different! Andrew, there are millions of robots on Earth now. In this region, according to the last census, there are almost as many robots as there are men."
   "I know, George. There are robots doing every conceivable type of work."
   "And none of them wear clothes."
   "But none of them are free, George."
   Little by little, Andrew added to his wardrobe. He was inhibited by George's smile and by the stares of the people who commissioned work.
   He might be free, but there was built into Andrew a carefully detailed program concerning. his behavior to people, and it was only by the tiniest steps that he dared advance; open disapproval would set him back months. Not everyone accepted Andrew as free. He was incapable of resenting that, and yet there was a difficulty about his thinking process when he thought of it. Most of all, he tended to avoid putting on clothes -or too many of them-when he thought Little Miss might come to visit him. She was older now and was often away in some warmer climate, but when she returned the first thing she did was visit him.
   On one of her visits, George said, ruefully, "She's got me, Andrew. I'll be running for the legislature next year. 'Like grandfather,' she says, 'like grandson."'
   "Like grandfather ..." Andrew stopped, uncertain.
   "I mean that I, George, the grandson, will be like Sir, the grandfather, who was in the legislature once."
   "It would be pleasant, George, if Sir were still-" He paused, for he did not want to say, "in working order." That seemed inappropriate.
   "Alive;" George said. "Yes, I think of the old monster now and then, too."
   Andrew often thought about this conversation. He had noticed his own incapacity in speech when talking with George. Somehow the language had changed since Andrew had come into being with a built-in ': vocabulary. Then, too, George used a colloquial speech, as Sir and Little Miss had not. Why should he have called Sir a monster when surely that word was not a appropriate. Andrew could not even turn to his own -' books for guidance. They were old, and most dealt with woodworking, with art, with furniture design. .; There were none on language, none on the ways off; human beings.
   Finally, it seemed to him that he must seek the proper books; and as a free robot, he felt he must not ask George. He would go to town and use the library. j It was a triumphant decision and he felt his electro potential grow distinctly higher until he had to throw in an impedance coil.
   He put on a full costume, including even a shoulder chain of wood. He would have preferred the glitter plastic, but George had said that wood was much more appropriate. and that polished cedar was considerably more valuable as well.
   He had placed a hundred feet between himself and the house before gathering resistance brought him to a halt. He shifted the impendance coil out of circuit, and when that did not seem to help enough he returned to his home and on a piece of notepaper wrote neatly, "I have gone to the library," and placed it in clear view on his worktable.