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senselessly. Why, you and Fafhrd and I all spoke of there being twelve white rats!”
    The Mouser shook his head. “Fafhrd and I said no word about the exact number of rats. You said there were a dozen,” he informed Slinoor. “Not twelve, but ... a dozen. I assumed you were using the expression as a round number, an approximation.” The Mouser snapped his fingers. “Now I remember that when you said a dozen I became idly curious and counted the rats. And got eleven. But it seemed to me too trifling a matter to dispute.”
    “No, there were twelve rats yesterday,” Slinoor asserted solemnly and with great conviction. “You're mistaken, Gray Mouser.”
    “I'll believe my friend Slinoor before a dozen of you,” Lukeen put in.
    “True, friends should stick together,” the Mouser said with an approving smile. “Yesterday I counted Glipkerio's gift-rats and got eleven. Ship's Master Slinoor, any man may be mistaken in his recollections from time to time. Let's analyze this. Twelve white rats divided by four silver cages equals three to a cage. Now let me see ... I have it! There was a time yesterday when between us, we surely counted the rats—when we carried them down to this cabin. How many were in the cage you carried, Slinoor?”
    “Three,” the latter said instantly.
    “And three in mine,” the Mouser said.
    “And three in each of the other two,” Lukeen put in impatiently. “We waste time!”
    “We certainly do,” Slinoor agreed strongly, nodding.
    “Wait!” said the Mouser, lifting a point-fingered hand. “There was a moment when all of us must have noticed how many rats there were in one of the cages Fafhrd carried—when he first lifted it up, speaking the while to Hisvet. Visualize it. He lifted it like this.” The Mouser touched his thumb to his third finger. “How many rats were in that cage, Slinoor?”
    Slinoor frowned deeply. “Two,” he said, adding instantly, “and four in the other.”
    “You said three in each just now,” the Mouser reminded him.
    “I did not!” Slinoor denied. “Lukeen said that, not I.”
    “Yes, but you nodded, agreeing with him,” the Mouser said, his raised eyebrows the very emblem of innocent truth-seeking.
    “I agreed with him only that we wasted time,” Slinoor said. “And we do.” Just the same a little of the frown lingered between his eyes and his voice had lost its edge of utter certainty.
    “I see,” the Mouser said doubtfully. By stages he had begun to play the part of an attorney elucidating a case in court, striding about and frowning most professionally. Now he shot a sudden question: “Fafhrd, how many rats did you carry?”
    “Five,” boldly answered the Northerner, whose mathematics were not of the sharpest, but who'd had plenty time to count surreptitiously on his fingers and to think about what the Mouser was up to. “Two in one cage, three in the other.”
    “A feeble falsehood!” Lukeen scoffed. “The base barbarian would swear to anything to win a smile from the Demoiselle, who has him fawning.”
    “That's a foul lie!” Fafhrd roared, springing up and fetching his head such a great hollow thump on a deck beam that he clapped both hands to it and crouched in dizzy agony.
    “Sit down, Fafhrd, before I ask you to apologize to the deck!” the Mouser commanded with heartless harshness. “This is solemn civilized court, no barbarous brawling session! Let's see—three and three and five make ... eleven. Demoiselle Hisvet!” He pointed an accusing finger straight between her red-irised eyes and demanded most sternly, “How many white rats did you bring aboard Squid ? The truth now and nothing but the truth!”
    “Eleven,” she answered demurely. “La, but I'm joyed someone at last had the wit to ask me.”
    “That I know's not true!” Slinoor said abruptly, his brow once more clear. “Why didn't I think of it before?—'twould have saved us all this bother of questions and counting. I have in this very cabin