Solution: nothing must be overlooked. Sam grinned bitterly as the ancient elevator swayed up to his office. If he only had time for a little more practice with a person whose reactions he knew so exactly that any deviation from the norm would be instantly obvious! But the strange old man would be calling tonight, and, if his business concerned “Bild-A-Man” sets, Sam’s experiments might be abruptly curtailed. And where would he find such a person—he had few real friends and no intimate ones. And, to be at all valuable, it would have to be someone he knew as well as himself.

Himself!

“Floor, sir.” The elevator operator was looking at him reproachfully. Sam’s exultant shout had caused him to bring the carrier to a spasmodic stop six inches under the floor level, something he had not done since that bygone day when he had first nervously reached for the controls. He felt his craftsmanship was under a shadow as he morosely closed the door behind the lawyer.

And why not himself? He knew his own physical attributes better than he knew Tina’s; any mental instability on the part of his reproduced self would be readily discernible long before it reached the point of psychosis or worse. And the beauty of it was that he would have no compunction in disassembling a superfluous Sam Weber. Quite the contrary: the horror in that situation would be the continued existence of a duplicate personality; its removal would be a relief.

Twinning himself would provide the necessary practice in a familiar medium. Ideal. He’d have to take careful notes so that if anything went wrong he’d know just where to avoid going off the track in making his own personal Tina.

And maybe the old geezer wasn’t interested in the set at all. Even if he were, Sam could take his landlady’s advice and not be at home when he called. Silver linings wherever he looked.

Lew Knight stared at the instrument in Sam’s hands. “What in the sacred name of Blackstone and all his commentaries is that? Looks like a lawn mower for a window box!”