tissue, made of a new patented miracle material, combines the best features of esthetic and functional performance."

The woman was obviously impressed. Lips slightly parted, she watched Ira attentively and listened breathlessly to everything he said. Instinctively, he felt that he had made a sale. But the woman said nothing; only gazed at him in a way that might have been covetous, might have been adoring or might have been merely symptomatic of hypnosis.

"May I demonstrate the I's power and versatility in practical performance?" Ira asked. Taking her silence to be consent, he swung into his demonstration.

Swiftly, surely, he went about the room, cleaning. Effortlessly, he lifted large pieces of furniture and, holding them aloft with his right hand, he cleaned under them with his left. He talked as he worked. "Notice the quiet efficiency of the self-cleansing electro-static duster we have built in. We also have attachments for waxing, washing, spraying, painting, ironing, soldering...."

"You're wonderful," the woman sighed.

"And let me point out," Ira pursued, eager to clinch the sale, "that the Model I is so life-like that, in normal operation, it is almost completely silent. Only a faint throbbing—like that of a human heart—is noticeable."

The woman cocked her head to a side. "I don't hear anything," she said.

Ira smiled triumphantly. "Of course, you don't! Come here," he said. "Put your ear to my chest and you'll just be able to make it out."

She rested her head on his chest and listened. The delicate fragrance of her perfume mingled with that sweet human scent that not even the Model I robots could imitate. Ira bent his head and brushed his sensitized cheek against her hair. He felt emotions that no robot should feel.

He silently cursed his makers and the wonderfully human brain they had given him. Their theory was that a salesman, to be effective, should think exactly like a human being. To better satisfy the customers, he should appreciate every human drive and desire. But it was wrong to feel like a man, to desire like a man, to hurt like a man and be unable to ease the pain because he was not a man! For once, U.S. Robot had gone too far!

The woman looked up at him with the eyes that broadcast adoration. "You're wonderful!" she repeated. "Do you think...?" She 

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