sunrise that would condemn us to Balak for the rest of our lives.

Thinking about our problem had reminded me of an old puzzle I'd heard somewhere about three men being placed in a room where they can see each other but not themselves; they're shown three white hats and two black ones, and then they're blindfolded and a hat is put on each of their heads. When the blindfolds are taken off, the third man knows by looking at the other two and by what they say just what color hat he's wearing himself, but I always forget how it is that he knows.

We got so interested in the hat problem that the east was turning pink before we realized it.

None of us actually saw the sun rise, though, except the Quack and the bogus Haslop.

I was right in the middle of a sentence when all of a sudden my stomach rolled over and growled like a dying tiger, and I never had such an all-gone feeling in my life. I looked at the others, wondering if the stuff in the pitcher had poisoned us all, and saw Gibbons and Corelli staring at each other with the same startled look in their eyes. One of the Haslops was hit, too—he had the same pinched expression around the mouth, and perspiration stood out on his forehead in drops as big as grapes.

And then the four of us were on our feet and dashing for open country, leaving the Quack and the remaining Haslop staring after us. The Haslop who stayed looked puzzled, I thought, but the Quack only seemed interested and very much entertained.

I couldn't be sure of that, though. There wasn't time to look twice.

When we came back to the court later, shaken and pale and bracing ourselves for another dash at any minute, we found Gaffa and his grinning chums congratulating the Quack. The bogus Haslop had dropped his impersonation act and seemed very happy.

"I've learned to like Haslop so well after twenty-two years," he said, "that I'm quite prejudiced in favor of his species, and I'm delighted that we are to join your Realm. Balak and Terra will get along famously, I know, since you people are so ingenious and appreciative of humor."

We ignored the Balakians and swooped down on the Quack.

"You put something in that pitcher after you drank out of it, you insult to humanity," I said. "What was it?"

The Quack backed off with a wary look in his eye.

"A recipe from the curiosa section of my medical book," he said. "I whipped up some capsules for my pocket kit, just in case of emergency, and I couldn't help thinking of them when—"

"Never mind the buildup," Captain Corelli said. "What was it?"

"A formula invented by ancient Terran bartenders, and not recommended except in extreme cases," the Quack said. "With a very odd name. It's called a twin Mickey."

We'd probably have murdered him then and there if the Quack's concoction had let us.

Later on we had to admit that the Quack had actually done us a service, since his identifying the real Haslop saved us from being marooned for life on Balak. And the Balakians were such an immediate sensation in the Terran Realm that the Quack's part in their admittance made him famous overnight. Somebody high up in Government circles got him out of Solar Exploitations field work and gave him a sinecure in an antibiotics laboratory, where he wound up as happy as a pig in a peanut field.

Which points up the statement I made in the beginning, that one thing you never have to worry about in Solar Exploitations work is being bored.

You see what I mean?