"Hazel picke up a nobbly purplish starfish from the bottom of the pool and popped it into his nearlyu full gunny sack. " I wonder what they do with them' he said.

"Do with what?" Doc asked

"The starfish" said Hazel...

"THey study them" Doc said patiently and he remebered that he had answered this question for Hazeldozens of times before. But Doc had one mental habit he could not get over. When anyone asked a question, Doc thought he wanted to know the answer. That was the way with Doc. He never asked unless he wanted to know and he could not conceive of the brain that would ask without wanting to know. But Hazel, who simply wanted to hear talk, had developed a system of making the answer to one question the basis of another. It kept conversation going.

"What do they find to study" Hazel continued ...

"They're complicated and interesting animals" Doc said a little defensively. "Besides, these are going to the Middle West to Northwestern University"

Hazel used his trick. "They got no starfish there?"

"They got no ocean there" said Doc.

"Oh!" said Hazel and he cast frantically about for a peg to hang a new question on. He hated to have a conversation die out like this. He wasn't quick enough. While he was looking for a question Doc asked one. Hazel hated that, it meant casting about in his mind for an answer and casting about in Hazel's mind was like wandering alone in a deserted museum. Hazel's mind was choked with uncatelogued exhibits. ...

...

"Look, Hazel, I know you've got six or seven undersized abalones in the bottom of your sack. If we get stopped by a game warden, you're going to say they're mine, on my permit---aren't you?"

"Well---hell" said Hazel.

"It's like the industrial alchohol board. They've got suspicious minds. They always think I'm drinking the alchoho. They think that about everyone"

"Well, ain't you?"

"Not much of it" said Doc. The stuff they put in it tastes terrible and it's a big job to redistill it."

"That stuff ain't so bad" said Hazel. "Me and Mack had a snort of it the other day. What is it they put in?"

Doc was about to answer when he saw it was Hazel's trick again. "Let's get moving" he said. He hoisted his sack of starfish on his shoulder. And he had forgotten about the illegal under-sized abalones in the bottom of Hazel's sack.