"Only that I was wondering if you were feeling chilly these days. Why else would you want to wear those pants?"
"To find out what it is like."
"Ah," George said. And then after a bit he said, again, " Ah. I see. You want to find out what it's like. All right, I can tell you, Andrew. What it will feel like is like having a dirty old piece of rough unpleasant cloth wrapped around your fine smooth metal skin."
"Are you saying that you don't want me to put the trousers on?" Andrew asked.
"I didn't say that."
"But you think it's a peculiar idea."
"Well-"
"You do."
"Yes. As a matter of fact, I do. Very damned peculiar indeed, Andrew."
"And therefore you refuse to give me the trousers except for the purpose of destroying them?"
"No," George said. There was a note of exasperation in his voice. "Do whatever you want with them, Andrew. Try them on, if you like. Why should I have any objections? You're a free robot. You can put on a pair of pants if that's what you feel like doing. I don't see any reason at all why I should stand in your way. -Go on, Andrew. Put them on."
"Yes," said Andrew. "Yes, I will."
"It's a moment for the history books. The first time a robot has put on clothes. I ought to get my camera, Andrew."
Andrew brought the trousers close to his waist. But then he hesitated.
"Well?" George asked.
"Will you show me how to do it?" Andrew said.
Grinning broadly now, George showed Andrew how to manipulate the static charge so as to allow the trousers to open, wrap about his lower body, and move shut. George demonstrated the technique a couple of times with his own trousers, but Andrew was quite aware that it was going to take him a while to duplicate that one flowing motion, which George, after all, had been performing since he was a child.
"It is the twist of the wrist when you bring the hand upward that puzzles me," Andrew said.
"Like this," said George, and did it yet again.
"Like that?"
"More like this."
"Like this, yes." Andrew touched the little stud once again and the trousers opened, fell, rose, and closed themselves about his legs. "Right?"
"Much better," said George.
"A little practice and it will seem natural to me, I think," Andrew said.
George gave him an odd look. "No, Andrew. It's never going to seem natural to you. Because it isn't natural. -Why on Earth do you want to wear trousers, Andrew?"
"As I said before, George. Out of curiosity about what it is like to be clothed."
"But you weren't naked before you put them on. You were simply-yourself."
"Yes, I suppose I was," Andrew said noncommittally.
"I'm trying to be sympathetic. But for the life of me I still can't understand what you're up to, Andrew. Your body is so beautifully functional that it's a downright shame to cover it-especially when you don't need to worry about either temperature control or modesty. And the fabric doesn't really cling properly, not on metal."
Andrew said, "Are not human bodies beautifully functional, George? Yet you all cover yourselves."
"For warmth, for cleanliness, for protection, for decorativeness. And as a concession to social custom. None of that applies to you."
Andrew said, "I feel bare without clothes."
"You do? You've never said a word about that before today, so far as I know. Is this something new?"
"Reasonably new."
"A week? A month? A year? -What's going on, Andrew?"
"It is hard for me to explain. I have begun to feel-different. "
"Different! Different from whom? It isn't as though a robot is any novelty any more. 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 humans."
"I know that, George. There are robots doing every conceivable kind of work."
"And not a single one of them wears clothes."
"But none of them is free, George."
"So that's it! You feel different because you are different!"
"Exactly."
"But to wear clothes-"
"Indulge me, George. I want to do this."
George let out his breath in a long, slow exhalation.
"Whatever you say. You're a free robot, Andrew."
"Yes. I am."
After his initial skepticism George seemed to find Andrew's venture into wearing clothes curious and amusing. He cooperated by bringing him, little by little, new additions to his wardrobe. Andrew could hardly go into town to purchase clothing himself, and he felt ill at ease even about ordering it from the computer catalogs, because he knew that his name was widely known in many places ever since the court decision, and he didn't want some shipping clerk in a storeroom far away to recognize it on an order form and begin spreading the word that the free robot was now going in for wearing clothing.
So George would supply him with the articles he requested: a shirt first, then shoes, a fine pair of gloves, a set of decorative epaulets.
"What about underwear?" George asked. "Should I get you some of that too?" But Andrew had no idea of the existence or purpose of underwear, and George had to explain it to him. Andrew decided that he had no need of it.
He tended to wear his new clothes only when he was alone at home. He was hardly ready to go outdoors in them; and even in his own cabin he stopped wearing them in the presence of others after a few preliminary experiments. He was inhibited by George's patronizing smile, which with the best will in the world George continued to be unable to conceal, and by the bewildered stares of the first few customers who saw him dressed when they came to him to commission work.