Isaac Asimov: I, Robot

I, Robot

Isaac Asimov

TO JOHN W. CAMPBELL, JR, who godfathered THE ROBOTS

The story entitled Robbie was first published as Strange Playfellow in Super Science
Stories. Copyright © 1940 by Fictioneers, Inc.; copyright © 1968 by Isaac Asimov.

The following stories were originally published in Astounding Science Fiction:

Reason
, copyright © 1941 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc.; copyright © 1969 by
Isaac Asimov.

Liar! copyright © 1941 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc.; copyright © 1969 by Isaac
Asimov.

Runaround
, copyright © 1942 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc.; copyright I970
by Isaac Asimov.

Catch That Rabbit, copyright © 1944 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc.

Escape, copyright © 1945 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc.

Evidence, copyright © 1946 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc.

Little Lost Robot, copyright © 1947 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc.

The Evitable Conflict, copyright © 1950 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Robbie

Runaround

Reason

Catch That Rabbit
Liar!

Little Lost Robot
Escape!

Evidence

The Evitable Conflict

Introduction

I LOOKED AT MY NOTES AND I DIDN’T LIKE THEM. I’d spent three days at U. S. Robots and

might as well have spent them at ho
me with the Encyclopedia Tellurica.
Susan Calvin had been born in the year 1982, they said, which made her seventy-
five now. Everyone knew that. Appropriately enough, U. S. Robot and Mechanical Men,
Inc. was seventy-five also, since it had been in the year of Dr. Calvin’s birth that
Lawrence Robertson had first taken out incorporation papers for what eventually became
the strangest industrial giant in man’s history. Well, everyone knew that, too.
At the age of twenty, Susan Calvin had been part of the particular Psycho-Math
seminar at which Dr. Alfred Lanning of U. S. Robots had demonstrated the first mobile
robot to be equipped with a voice. It was a large, clumsy unbeautiful robot, smelling of
machine-oil and destined for the projected mines on Mercury. But it could speak and
make sense.
Susan said nothing at that seminar; took no part in the hectic discussion period
that followed. She was a frosty girl, plain and colorless, who protected herself against a
world she disliked by a mask-like expression and a hypertrophy of intellect. But as she
watched and listened, she felt the stirrings of a cold enthusiasm.
She obtained her bachelor’s degree at Columbia in 2003 and began graduate work
in cybernetics.
All that had been done in the mid-twentieth century on “calculating machines”
had been upset by Robertson and his positronic brain-paths. The miles of relays and
photocells had given way to the spongy globe of plantinumiridium about the size of a
human brain.
She learned to calculate the parameters necessary to fix the possible variables

within the “positronic
brain”; to construct “brains” on paper such that the responses to
given stimuli could be accurately predicted.
In 2008, she obtained her Ph.D. and joined United States Robots as a
“Robopsychologist,” becoming the first great practitioner of a new science. Lawrence
Robertson was still president of the corporation; Alfred Lanning had become director of
research.
For fifty years, she watched the direction of human progress change and leap
ahead.
Now she was retiring -- as much as she ever could. At least, she was allowing
someone else’s name to be inset upon the door of her office.
That, essentially, was what I had. I had a long list of her published papers, of the
patents in her name; I had the chronological details of her promotions. In short I had her
professional “vita” in full detail.
But that wasn’t what I wanted.
I needed more than that for my feature articles for Interplanetary Press. Much
more.
I told her so.
“Dr. Calvin,” I said, as lushly as possible, “in the mind of the public you and U. S.
Robots are identical. Your retirement will end an era and--”
“You want the human-interest angle?” She didn’t smile at me. I don’t think she
ever smiles. But her eyes were sharp, though not angry. I felt her glance slide through me
and out my occiput and knew that I was uncommonly transparent to her; that everybody
was.
But I said, “That’s right.”
“Human interest out of robots? A contradiction.”
“No, doctor. Out of you.”
“Well, I’ve been called a robot myself.
Surely, they’ve told you I’m not human.”
They had, but there was no point in saying so.
She got up from her chair. She wasn’t tall and she looked frail. I followed her to
the window and we looked out.
The offices and factories of U. S. Robots were a small city; spaced and planned. It
was flattened out like an aerial photograph.
“When I first came here,” she said, “I had a little room in a building right about
there where the fire-house is now.” She pointed. “It was torn down before you were born.
I shared the room with three others. I had half a desk. We built our robots all in one
building. Output -- three a week. Now look at us.”
“Fifty Years,” I hackneyed, “is a long time.”
“Not when you’re looking back at them,” she said. “You wonder how they
vanished so quickly.”
She went back to her desk and sat down. She didn’t need expression on her face
to look sad, somehow.
“How old are you?” she wanted to know.
“Thirty-two,” I said.
“Then you don’t remember a world without robots. There was a time when
humanity faced the universe alone and without a friend. Now he has creatures to help
him; stronger creatures than himself, more faithful, more useful, and absolutely devoted
to him. Mankind is no longer alone. Have you ever thought of it that way?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t. May I quote you?”
“You may. To you, a robot is a robot. Gears and metal; electricity and positrons.
Mind and iron! Human-made! If necessary, human-destroyed! But you haven’t worked
with them, so you don’t know them. They’re a cleaner, better breed than we are.”
I tried to nudge her gently with words, “We’d like to hear some of the things you
could tell us; get your views on robots. The Interplanetary Press reaches the entire Solar
System. Potential audience is three billion, Dr. Calvin. They ought to know what you
could tell them on robots.”
It wasn’t necessary to nudge. She didn’t hear me, but she was moving in the right
direction.
“They might have known that from the start. We sold robots for Earth-use then --
before my time it was, even. Of course, that was when robots could not talk. Afterward,
they became more human and opposition began. The labor unions, of course, naturally
opposed robot competition for human jobs, and various segments of religious opinion had
their superstitious objections. It was all quite ridiculous and quite useless. And yet there it
was.”

I was taking it down verbatim on my poc

ket-recorder, trying not to show the
knuckle-motions of my hand. If you practice a bit, you can get to the point where you can
record accurately without taking the little gadget out of your pocket.
“Take the case of Robbie,” she said. “I never knew him. He was dismantled the
year before I joined the company -- hopelessly out-of-date. But I saw the little girl in the
museum--”
She stopped, but I didn’t say anything. I let her eyes mist up and her mind travel
back. She had lots of time to cover.
“I heard about it later, and when they called us blasphemers and demon-creators, I
always thought of him. Robbie was a non-vocal robot. He couldn’t speak. He was made
and sold in 1996. Those were the days before extreme specialization, so he was sold as a
nursemaid.”
“As a what?”
“As a nursemaid.”

Robbie

“NINETY-EIGHT -- NINETY-NINE -- ONE HUNDRED.” Gloria withdrew her chubby
little forearm from before her eyes and stood for a moment, wrinkling her nose and
blinking in the sunlight. Then, trying to watch in all directions at once, she withdrew a
few cautious steps from the tree against which she had been leaning.
She craned her neck to investigate the possibilities of a clump of bushes to the
right and then withdrew farther to obtain a better angle for viewing its dark recesses. The
quiet was profound except for the incessant buzzing of insects and the occasional chirrup
of some hardy bird, braving the midday sun.
Gloria pouted, “I bet he went inside the house, and I’ve told him a million times
that that’s not fair.”
With tiny lips pressed together tightly and a severe frown crinkling her forehead,
she moved determinedly toward the two-story building up past the driveway.
Too late she heard the rustling sound behind her, followed by the distinctive and
rhythmic clump-clump of Robbie’s metal feet. She whirled about to see her triumphing

companion emerge from hiding and ma
ke for the home-tree at full speed.
Gloria shrieked in dismay. “Wait, Robbie! That wasn’t fair, Robbie! You
promised you wouldn’t run until I found you.” Her little feet could make no headway at
all against Robbie’s giant strides. Then, within ten feet of the goal, Robbie’s pace slowed
suddenly to the merest of crawls, and Gloria, with one final burst of wild speed, dashed
pantingly past him to touch the welcome bark of home-tree first.
Gleefully, she turned on the faithful Robbie, and with the basest of ingratitude,
rewarded him for his sacrifice by taunting him cruelly for a lack of running ability.
“Robbie can’t run,” she shouted at the top of her eight-year-old voice. “I can beat
him any day. I can beat him any day.” She chanted the words in a shrill rhythm.
Robbie didn’t answer, of course -- not in words. He pantomimed running instead,
inching away until Gloria found herself running after him as he dodged her narrowly,
forcing her to veer in helpless circles, little arms outstretched and fanning at the air.
“Robbie,” she squealed, “stand still!” -- And the laughter was forced out of her in
breathless jerks.
Until he turned suddenly and caught her up, whirling her round, so that for her the
world fell away for a moment with a blue emptiness beneath, and green trees stretching
hungrily downward toward the void. Then she was down in the grass again, leaning
against Robbie’s leg and still holding a hard, metal finger.
After a while, her breath returned. She pushed uselessly at her disheveled hair in
vague imitation of one of her mother’s gestures and twisted to see if her dress were torn.
She slapped her hand against Robbie’s torso, “Bad boy! I’ll spa
k you!”
And Robbie cowered, holding his hands over his face so that she had to add, “No,
I won’t, Robbie. I won’t spank you. But anyway, it’s my turn to hide now because you’ve

got longer legs and you promised
not to run till I found you.”
Robbie nodded his head -- a small parallelepiped with rounded edges and corners
attached to a similar but much larger parallel
epiped that served as torso by means of a
short, flexible stalk -- and obediently faced the tree. A thin, metal film descended over his
glowing eyes and from within his body came a steady, resonant ticking.
“Don’t peek now -- and don’t skip any numbers,” warned Gloria, and scurried for
cover.
With unvarying regularity, seconds were ticked off, and at the hundredth, up went
the eyelids, and the glowing red of Robbie’s eyes swept the prospect. They rested for a
moment on a bit of colorful gingham that protruded from behind a boulder. He advanced
a few steps and convinced himself that it was Gloria who squatted behind it.
Slowly, remaining always between Gloria and home-tree, he advanced on the
hiding place, and when Gloria was plainly in sight and could no longer even theorize to
herself that she was not seen, he extended one arm toward her, slapping the other against
his leg so that it rang again. Gloria emerged sulkily.
“You peeked!” she exclaimed, with gross unfairness. “Besides I’m tired of
playing hide-and-seek. I want a ride.”
But Robbie was hurt at the unjust accusati

on, so he seated himself carefully and
shook his head ponderously from side to side.
Gloria changed her tone to one of gentle coaxing immediately, “Come on,
Robbie. I didn’t mean it about the peeking. Give me a ride.”
Robbie was not to be won over so easily, though. He gazed stubbornly at the sky,
and shook his head even more emphatically.
“Please, Robbie, please give me a ride.” She encircled his neck with rosy arms
and hugged tightly. Then, changing moods in a moment, she moved away. “If you don’t,
I’m going to cry,” and her face twisted appallingly in preparation.
Hard-hearted Robbie paid scant attention to this dreadful possibility, and shook
his head a third time. Gloria found it necessary to play her trump card.
“If you don’t,” she exclaimed warmly, “I won’t tell you any more stories, that’s
all. Not one--”
Robbie gave in immediately and unconditionally before this ultimatum, nodding
his head vigorously until the metal of his neck hummed. Carefully, he raised the little girl
and placed her on his broad, flat shoulders.
Gloria’s threatened tears vanished immediately and she crowed with delight.
Robbie’s metal skin, kept at a constant temperature of seventy by the high resistance coils
within, felt nice and comfortable, while the beautifully loud sound her heels made as they
bumped rhythmically against his chest was enchanting.
“You’re an air-coaster, Robbie, you’re a big, silver aircoaster. Hold out your arms
straight. -- You got to, Robbie, if you’re going to be an aircoaster.”
The logic was irrefutable. Robbie’s arms were wings catching the air currents and
he was a silver ‘coaster.
Gloria twisted the robot’s head and leaned to the right. He banked sharply. Gloria
equipped the ‘coaster with a motor that went “Br-r-r” and then with weapons that went
“Powie” and “Sh-sh-shshsh.” Pirates were giving chase and the ship’s blasters were
coming into play. The pirates dropped in a steady rain.
“Got another one. Two more,” she cried.
Then “Faster, men,” Gloria said pompously, “we’re running out of ammunition.”
She aimed over her shoulder with undaunted courage and Robbie was a blunt-nosed
spaceship zooming through the void at maximum acceleration.
Clear across the field he sped, to the patch of tall grass on the other side, where he
stopped with a suddenness that evoked a shriek from his flushed rider, and then tumbled
her onto the soft, green carpet.
Gloria gasped and panted, and gave voice to intermittent whispered exclamations
of “That was nice!”
Robbie waited until she had caught her breath and then pulled gently at a lock of
hair.
“You want something?” said Gloria, eyes wide in an apparently artless
complexity that fooled her huge “nursemaid” not at all. He pulled the curl harder.
“Oh, I know. You want a story.”
Robbie nodded rapidly.
“Which one?”
Robbie made a semi-circle in the air with one finger.
The little girl protested, “Again? I’ve told you Cinderella a million times. Aren’t
you tired of it? --It’s for babies.”
Another semi-circle.
“Oh, well,” Gloria composed herself, ran
over the details of the tale in her mind
(together with her own elaborations, of which she had several) and began:
“Are you ready? Well -- once upon a time there was a beautiful little girl whose
name was Ella. And she had a terribly cruel step-mother and two very ugly and very cruel
step-sisters and--”

Gloria was reaching the very climax of the tale -- midnight was striking and
everything was changing back to the shabby originals lickety-split, while Robbie listened
tensely with burning eyes -- when the interruption came.
“Gloria!”
It was the high-pitched sound of a woman who has been calling not once, but
several times; and had the nervous tone of one in whom anxiety was beginning to
overcome impatience.
“Mamma’s calling me,” said Gloria, not
quite happily. “You’d better carry me
back to the house, Robbie.”
Robbie obeyed with alacrity for somehow there was that in him which judged it
best to obey Mrs. Weston, without as much as a scrap of hesitation. Gloria’s father was
rarely home in the daytime except on Sunday -- today, for instance -- and when he was,
he proved a genial and understanding person. Gloria’s mother, however, was a source of
uneasiness to Robbie and there was always the impulse to sneak away from her sight.
Mrs. Weston caught sight of them the minute they rose above the masking tufts of
long grass and retired inside the house to wait.
“I’ve shouted myself hoarse, Gloria,” she said, severely. “Where were you?”
“I was with Robbie,” quavered Gloria. “I was telling him Cinderella, and I forgot
it was dinner-time.”
“Well, it’s a pity Robbie forgot, too.” Then, as if that reminded her of the robot’s
presence, she whirled upon him. “You may go, Robbie. She doesn’t need you now.”
Then, brutally, “And don’t come back till I call you.”
Robbie turned to go, but hesitated as Gloria cried out in his defense, “Wait,
Mamma, you got to let him stay. I didn’t finish Cinderella for him. I said I would tell him
Cinderella and I’m not finished.”
“Gloria!”
“Honest and truly, Mamma, he’ll stay so quiet, you won’t even know he’s here.
He can sit on the chair in the corner, and he won’t say a word, I mean he won’t do
anything. Will you, Robbie?”
Robbie, appealed to, nodded his massive head up and down once.
“Gloria, if you don’t stop this at once,
you shan’t see Robbie for a whole week.”
The girl’s eyes fell, “All right! But Cinderella is his favorite story and I didn’t
finish it. --And he likes it so much.”
The robot left with a disconsolate step and Gloria choked back a sob.

George Weston was comfortable. It was a habit of his to be comfortable on
Sunday afternoons. A good, hearty dinner below the hatches; a nice, soft, dilapidated
couch on which to sprawl; a copy of the Times; slippered feet and shirtless chest; how
could anyone help but be comfortable?
He wasn’t pleased, therefore, when his wife walked in. After ten years of married
life, be still was so unutterably foolish as to love her, and there was no question that he
was always glad to see her -- still Sunday afternoons just after dinner were sacred to him
and his idea of solid comfort was to be left in utter solitude for two or three hours.
Consequently, he fixed his eye firmly upon th

e latest reports of the Lefebre-Yoshida
expedition to Mars (this one was to take off from Lunar Base and might actually succeed)
and pretended she wasn’t there.
Mrs. Weston waited patiently for two minut

es, then impatiently for two more, and
finally broke the silence.
“George!”
“Hmpph?”
“George, I say! Will you put down that paper and look at me?”
The paper rustled to the floor and Weston turned a weary face toward his wife,
“What is it, dear?”
“You know what it is, George. It’s Gloria and that terrible machine.”
“What terrible machine?”
“Now don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s that robot Gloria
calls Robbie. He doesn’t leave her for a moment.”
“Well, why should he? He’s not supposed to. And he certainly isn’t a terrible
machine. He’s the best darn robot money can buy and I’m damned sure he set me back
half a year’s income. He’s worth it, though --

darn sight cleverer than half my office
staff.”

He made a move to pick up the paper again, but his wife was quicker and
snatched it away.
“You listen to me, George. I won’t have my daughter entrusted to a machine --
and I don’t care how clever it is. It has no soul, and no one knows what it may be
thinking. A child just isn’t made to be guarded by a thing of metal.”
Weston frowned, “When did you decide this? He’s been with Gloria two years
now and I haven’t seen you worry till now.”
“It was different at first. It was a nove
lty; it took a load off me, and -- and it was a
fashionable thing to do. But now I don’t know. The neighbors--”
“Well, what have the neighbors to do with it? Now, look. A robot is infinitely
more to be trusted than a human nursemaid. Robbie was constructed for only one purpose
really -- to be the companion of a little child. His entire ‘mentality’ has been created for
the purpose. He just can’t help being faithful and loving and kind. He’s a machine-made
so. That’s more than you can say for humans.”

“But something might go wrong. Some-

some-” Mrs. Weston was a bit hazy
about the insides of a robot, “some little jigger will come loose and the awful thing will
go berserk and- and-” She couldn’t bring herself to complete the quite obvious thought.
“Nonsense,” Weston denied, with an involuntary nervous shiver. “That’s
completely ridiculous. We had a long discussion at the time we bought Robbie about the
First Law of Robotics. You know that it is impossible for a robot to harm a human being;
that long before enough can go wrong to alter that First Law, a robot would be
completely inoperable. It’s a mathematical impossibility. Besides I have an engineer from
U. S. Robots here twice a year to give the poor gadget a complete overhaul. Why, there’s
no more chance of any thing at all going wrong with Robbie than there is of you or I
suddenly going loony -- considerably less, in fact. Besides, how are you going to take
him away from Gloria?”
He made another futile stab at the paper and his wife tossed it angrily into the next
room.
“That’s just it, George! She won’t play with anyone else. There are dozens of
little boys and girls that she should make friends with, but she won’t. She won’t go near
them unless I make her. That’s no way for a little girl to grow up. You want her to be
normal, don’t you? You want her to be able to take her part in society.”
“You’re jumping at shadows, Grace. Pretend Robbie’s a dog. I’ve seen hundreds
of children who would rather have their dog than their father.”
“A dog is different, George. We must get rid of that horrible thing. You can sell it
back to the company. I’ve asked, and you can.”
“You’ve asked? Now look here, Grace, let’s not go off the deep end. We’re
keeping the robot until Gloria is older and I don’t want the subject brought up again.”
And with that he walked out of the room in a huff.

Mrs. Weston met her husband at the door two evenings later. “You’ll have to

listen to this, George. There’s
bad feeling in the village.”
“About what?” asked Weston? He stepped into the washroom and drowned out
any possible answer by the splash of water.
Mrs. Weston waited. She said, “About Robbie.”
Weston stepped out, towel in hand, face red and angry, “What are you talking
about?”
“Oh, it’s been building up and building up. I’ve tried to close my eyes to it, but
I’m not going to any more. Most of the villagers consider Robbie dangerous. Children
aren’t allowed to go near our place in the evenings.”
“We trust our child with the thing.”
“Well, people aren’t reasonable about these things.”
“Then to hell with them.”
“Saying that doesn’t solve the problem. I’ve got to do my shopping down there.
I’ve got to meet them every day. And it’s even worse in the city these days when it comes
to robots. New York has just passed an ordinance keeping all robots off the streets
between sunset and sunrise.”
“All right, but they can’t stop us from keeping a robot in our home. Grace, this is
one of your campaigns. I recognize it. But it’s no use. The answer is still, no! We’re
keeping Robbie!”

And yet he loved his wife -- and what was worse, his wife knew it. George
Weston, after all, was only a man -- poor thing -- and his wife made full use of every
device which a clumsier and more scrupulous sex has learned, with reason and futility, to
fear.
Ten times in the ensuing week, he cried, “Robbie stays, and that’s final!” and
each time it was weaker and accompanied by a louder and more agonized groan.
Came the day at last, when Weston approached his daughter guiltily and
suggested a “beautiful” visivox show in the village.
Gloria clapped her hands happily, “Can Robbie go?”
“No, dear,” he said, and winced at the sound of his voice, “they won’t allow
robots at the visivox -- but you can tell him all about it when you get home.” He stumbled
all over the last few words and looked away.
Gloria came back from town bubbling over with enthusiasm, for the visivox had
been a gorgeous spectacle indeed.
She waited for her father to maneuver the jet-car into the sunken garage, “Wait till
I tell Robbie, Daddy. He would have liked it like anything. Especially when Francis Fran
was backing away so-o-o quietly, and backed right into one of the Leopard-Men and had
to run.” She laughed again, “Daddy, are there really Leopard-Men on the Moon?”
“Probably not,” said Weston absently. “It’s just funny make-believe.” He couldn’t
take much longer with the car. He’d have to face it.
Gloria ran across the lawn. “Robbie. --Robbie!”
Then she stopped suddenly at the sight of a beautiful collie which regarded her
out of serious brown eyes as it wagged its tail on the porch.
“Oh, what a nice dog!” Gloria climbed the steps, approached cautiously and
patted it. “Is it for me, Daddy?”
Her mother had joined them. “Yes, it is, Gloria. Isn’t it nice -- soft and furry? It’s
very gentle. It likes little girls.”
“Can he play games?”
“Surely. He can do any number of tricks. Would you like to see some?”
“Right away. I want Robbie to see him, too. Robbie!” She stopped, uncertainly,
and frowned, “I’ll bet he’s just staying in his room because he’s mad at me for not taking
him to the visivox. You’ll have to explain to him, Daddy. He might not believe me, but
he knows if you say it, it’s so.”
Weston’s lip grew tighter. He looked toward his wife but could not catch her eye.
Gloria turned precipitously and ran down the basement steps, shouting as she
went, “Robbie-- Come and see what Daddy and Mamma brought me. They brought me a
dog, Robbie.”
In a minute she had returned, a frightened little girl. “Mamma, Robbie isn’t in his
room. Where is he?” There was no answer and George Weston coughed and was
suddenly extremely interested in an aimlessly drifting cloud. Gloria’s voice quavered on
the verge of tears, “Where’s Robbie, Mamma?”
Mrs. Weston sat down and drew her daughter gently to her, “Don’t feel bad,
Gloria. Robbie has gone away, I think.”
“Gone away? Where? Where’s he gone away, Mamma?”
“No one knows, darling. He just walked away. We’ve looked and we’ve looked
and we’ve looked for him, but we can’t find him.”
“You mean he’ll never come back again?” Her eyes were round with horror.
“We may find him soon. We’ll keep looking for him. And meanwhile you can
play with your nice new doggie. Look at him! His name is Lightning and he can--”
But Gloria’s eyelids had overflown, “I don’t want the nasty dog -- I want Robbie.
I want you to find me Robbie.” Her feelings became too deep for words, and she
spluttered into a shrill wail.
Mrs. Weston glanced at her husband for help, but he merely shuffled his feet
morosely and did not withdraw his ardent stare from the heavens, so she bent to the task
of consolation, “Why do you cry, Gloria? Robbie was only a machine, just a nasty old
machine. He wasn’t alive at all.”
“He was not no machine!” screamed Gloria, fiercely and ungrammatically. “He
was a person just like you and me and he was my friend. I want him back. Oh, Mamma, I
want him back.”
Her mother groaned in defeat and left Gloria to her sorrow.
“Let her have her cry out,” she told her husband. “Childish griefs are never
lasting. In a few days, she’ll forget that awful robot ever existed.”
But time proved Mrs. Weston a bit too optimistic. To be sure, Gloria ceased
crying, but she ceased smiling, too, and the passing days found her ever more silent and
shadowy. Gradually, her attitude of passive
unhappiness wore Mrs. Weston down and all
that kept her from yielding was the impossibility of admitting defeat to her husband.
Then, one evening, she flounced into the living room, sat down, folded her arms
and looked boiling mad.
Her husband stretched his neck in order to see her over his newspaper, “What
now, Grace?”
“It’s that child, George. I’ve had to send back the dog today. Gloria positively
couldn’t stand the sight of him, she said. She’s driving me into a nervous breakdown.”
Weston laid down the paper and a hopeful gleam entered his eye, “Maybe--
Maybe we ought to get Robbie back. It might be done, you know. I can get in touch with-
-”
“No!” she replied, grimly. “I won’t hear of it. We’re not giving up that easily. My


Isaac Asimov: I, Robot

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