Testing, Testing!, also known as Cloak and Dagger Duel, is a mystery short story by Isaac Asimov.
Part of the Union Club series, it was first published in the November 1981 issue of Gallery magazine. Later collected in The Union Club Mysteries.
Summary[]
At the Union Club, the conversation turns to how Griswold originally qualified for his mysterious work. Provoked by the group's skepticism, Griswold recounts the story of his own entry test.
He explains that after his successes in World War II, he was invited to Washington for a potential role in intelligence. There, he immediately clashed with the Department's most celebrated, though intellectually rigid, wartime agent. This agent, disdainful of Griswold's brash brilliance, decided to test him during a lecture. The agent wrote seven seemingly unconnected words on a blackboard: titter, attempt, ability, intention, capacity, invincible, and invidious. He challenged Griswold to find the hidden message they contained before the lecture ended.
Griswold solved it almost instantly. He noticed the words contained a pattern of the letters 'i' and 't'. He deduced that the dots of the 'i's and the crosses of the 't's represented the dots and dashes of Morse code. Translating the pattern from each word in sequence spelled out the message "YOU PASS." To confirm his solution, when the agent asked if he had enough time, Griswold replied with the phrase "Titrate is invisible," whose 'i's and 't's translated to the Morse code for "YES." Despite solving the test, Griswold's insolence ensured he was not offered the official job,
Characters[]
- Griswold
- Club Member (the narrator)
- Jennings
- Baranov
- The Wartime Agent
- The Five Trainees