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—"