Corelli snapped his fingers.
"So that's why they limited our time, and why they brought this stuff—to keep their fake Haslop refueled! All we've got to do to separate our men now is feed them something solid. The one that eats it is the real Haslop."
"Sure, all we need now is some solid food," I said. "You don't happen to have a couple of sandwiches on you, do you?"
Everybody got quiet for a couple of minutes, and in the silence the Quack surprised us all by deciding to speak up.
"Since I'm stuck here for life," he said, "a few germs more or less won't matter much. Pass me the pitcher, will you?"
He took a man-sized slug of the fiery stuff without even wiping off the pitcher's rim.
After that we gave it up, as who wouldn't have? Captain Corelli said the hell with it and took such a slug out of the pitcher that the two Haslops yelled murder and grabbed it quick themselves, and from then on we just sat around and drank and talked and waited for the 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.