Joe Mulloy leaped to his feet. In the moment of his excitement, he forgot that melodrama is a human weakness, and he became melodramatic himself. Even his incorruptible sneer faded slightly as his excitement grew. "I must find someone with a mind equal or superior to mine," he told himself. "Now who has a mind equal to mine? Obviously no one but me. Therefore I must find someone with a mind _superior_ to mine. Now who is superior to me?" For the first time in his life, Joe Mulloy was confronted by what seemed an unanswerable question. Joe's train of thought was interrupted by a deafening explosion from the laboratory, as his latest robot jubilantly committed suicide. The building shook violently for a few seconds, then subsided. To his great surprise, he was able to answer his question. "Of course! Since the only thing equal to me is me, the only thing superior to me would be a super-me, a super-ego! I'll build a super-robot, with all my magnificent qualities, only magnified a thousand times! I'll build a Super Joe Mulloy!" He ran the letters together to make it one word: Superjoemulloy. He dashed up to his laboratory, cleaned up the mess his overeager robot had made in killing itself, and went feverishly to work on his new project, learning the necessary techniques by experience, of course, and applying them to his super-robot. He made some mistakes at first, of course. But in three weeks and six days, Superjoemulloy was ready for its debut in robot society. Not one to miss a chance to impress mere humans with his genius, Joe invited the world's greatest positronics experts to the unveiling of Superjoemulloy. There was a tense air of excitement as Joe pulled the lever that removed the big black curtain in front of the robot and started the activation machine. When they saw Superjoemulloy, the experts gasped with envy. It was impossible to tell the super-robot from a human. Its limbs, torso, and head were so well proportioned, and done in such fine detail, that anyone in the room not in the know would have sworn that it was a human being. There were even fingerprints delicately cut into the super-robot's artificial hands. And Superjoemulloy looked exactly like Joe Mulloy, except for the sneer. It was twenty times better even than Joe's own. It was a super-sneer. But although the activation machine was working its hardest, nothing happened. The super-robot refused to move one solitary mechanical muscle. Joe's guests began to file out, once the novelty of the robot had passed. Joe left the room in disgust and went downstairs for a drink. * * * * * When he returned to the laboratory, Superjoemulloy was on its feet, examining the laboratory equipment with obvious disgust. In the preceding few minutes, the super-robot's super-sneer had grown more perfect, and the robot was fast becoming the very personification of contempt.