"But I didn't know they could do that," the Times-Herald-Mirror said plaintively. "Laugh, I mean."
"Ah," McGeachin told him, "that's because you never bothered to understand the real robot. You don't look beyond the metal to the wires that vibrate underneath."
"So I painted a picture on a piece of cardboard," Orville continued patiently, "—the side of a carton it was—and the picture was much admired in the plant, though I says it as shouldn't, and Mr. Pembroke, the superintendent, went so far as to ask if he might have it to hang in his office, which, of course, I was glad to have him do. And there it come to the attention of Mr. McGeachin when he was making his annual tour of the plant.... Mr. McGeachin is—" Orville approximated a modest cough "—by way of being a connoissoor."
"When I saw that picture, I knew I was standing in the presence of solid genius," McGeachin took over. "Mind you, when I heard it had been painted by a robot, I was surprised myself, I admit it freely. But I was not prejudiced. I had spent all my life with machines and I knew of what fine handcraft they were capable. 'Why shouldn't a robot paint a picture?' I asked myself. 'No reason whatsoever,' I answered. And I was right, as is amply evidenced by this splendid and tastefully arranged display." He beamed at Mr. Ditmars, who groaned.
"But it's impossible," the lady from Woman's Own protested, looking as if only the dignity of her profession kept her from bursting into tears. "How could a robot paint a picture. How could it want to paint a picture?"
"I dunno," Orville, as the only one who could conceivably be expected to answer this question, said. "It just come to me like that. You could say I was inspired, I guess."
"But inspiration is a human prerogative! If a robot can be inspired, what is left for people now?"
"'Tisn't for me to say, miss," Orville said modestly, "only I don't see why we both couldn't be inspired. Peaceful coexistence, like. If robots are designed to serve man, they could do a better job of it if both—man and machine—work side by side harmoniously."
"Work!" exclaimed the male reporters unharmoniously.
Mr. Replogle closed his eyes. He had never expected to hear such a mechanical word in the chaste purlieux of his gallery—his and Mr. Ditmars' gallery, that was, but it didn't matter, soon it wouldn't be anybody's gallery. Reality was following the inexorable course of the dream and they were doomed.