individual specifications as to size, coloring, strength, personality traits, apparent age, and so forth. For example, lonely people can have companionship built in, if they like. You can have an Ira or Inez possessing an almost human intelligence and free choice, or you can get one that is blindly servile and which will never volunteer advice or information. You can get an elderly, refined butler or a handsome young man-around-the-house. You can get a pretty, petite parlor maid or a buxom cook."

Ira paused to observe his customer. She was looking at him in a peculiar way. Knowing that he was a robot, she seemed to be appraising him as she would a man. Ira noted her odd reaction and puzzled over it. It usually went the other way—women lost interest in him when they learned that he was not a man.

"Why don't you come inside," the woman suggested suddenly, opening the door for him.

Ira smiled at her graciously and went into the house. Her reaction was not so puzzling, after all, he decided. A young and virtuous wife would feel the conventional fears that were "built into her" by society. She had to be careful. It was conceivably dangerous to be alone in the house with a handsome man. But, if he's a robot, she has nothing to fear—from him or herself.

"Sit down," the woman said, "and rest a while."

"Thank you, madam." He sat. "But, of course, I don't need the rest. Model I's can do strenuous work for twenty-three out of every twenty-four hours. In fact, in laboratory tests, they've been run for one hundred and eighty-six hours continuously, without a breakdown."

He was back in his sales pitch. "Work is the basic function of all U.S. Robot Company robots. With all their esthetic perfection, the household models are no exception to this rule. They are unequaled in efficient performance. Power is the keynote of the Model I."

He opened his demonstration case and removed a steel bar, three inches in diameter. Placing one hand on each end, he bent the metal into a V.

"The heart of the mechanism," he went on, "is a powerful twelve volt A-battery, perfectly shielded and guaranteed to give trouble-free service for at least forty years. Sixteen motor centers are fed by the central power plant, all coordinated and synchronized by the best flui-electronic brain ever devised. Sturdy TS steel alloy construction over all gives the Model I its phenomenal strength and durability. And the surface 

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