"So did I," I said, "medicine, I mean, but I never passed pharmacology with all those confusing extraterrestrial derivatives."
"Really?" he said interestedly. "It's my weakest subject, too. I'm a pretty good surgeon, but an awful fool with medications. I suppose that's how we got together. You won't come busting up the ward again, will you?"
"I'd like to be obliging, but if I don't dream and I don't know where I am when I'm asleep, I don't see what I can do to stop it. It's not as if I'm really there, is it?"
He crossed his arms and frowned at me. "Look," he said. "In my probable time, you're as much physically there as I am now in your time here. I'll prove it. I know I'm asleep in the emergency surgeon's room in my hospital. You know you're awake in your bedroom."
He held out his hand and walked across the floor to me.
"My name's Jones," he said.
"So's mine," I answered, shaking his solid hand. "This must be a very vivid dream to you."
We smiled at each other, and as he turned away, I caught sight of his reflection in the wall mirror beside my hairbrush on the cabinet.
"Good heavens!" I said. "In a mirror, you look exactly like me. Is your name Harry Jones?"