"I could have told you it wouldn't work," one Haslop said when Gibbons threw up his hands and quit. "I've lived so long with that phony that he even knows what I'm going to say next."
"I was going to say the same thing," the other one growled. "After twenty-two years of drinking and arguing with him, we've begun—God help me!—to think alike."
I tried my own hand just once.
"Gaffa says that they are exactly identical so far as outside appearance goes," I said. "But he may be wrong, or lying. Maybe we'd better check for ourselves."
The Haslops raised a howl, of course, but it did them no good. Gibbons and Corelli and I ganged them one at a time—the Quack refused to help for fear of being contaminated—and examined them carefully. It was a lively job, since both of them swore they were ticklish, and under different circumstances it could have been embarrassing.
But it settled one point. Gaffa hadn't lied. They were absolutely identical, as far as we could determine.
We had given it up and were resting from our labors when Gaffa came grinning out of the darkness and brought us a big crystal pitcher of something that would have passed for a first-class Planet Punch except that it was nearer two-thirds alcohol than the fifty-fifty mix you get at most interplanetary ginmills.
The two Haslops had a slug of it as a matter of course, being accustomed to it, and the rest of us followed suit. Only the Quack refused, turning green at the thought of all the alien bacteria that might be swimming around in the pitcher.
A couple of drinks made us feel better.