Twilight in the South 321 



larly outrageous piece of machinery had to be hoisted. So transfixed 

 was the newsman that he might have frozen to the rail and there 

 passed into a statuesque coma, to be chipped out by a laconic sea- 

 man after the storm. But fortunately the manager came by that way 

 again an hour later, still mumbling profanities. And when he stum- 

 bled into the newsman, he opened his mouth with sorry disregard 

 for the howHng subzero wind, and his pipe fell to the deck. 



"You blasted imbecile!" he roared. "Get the hell below before 

 you freeze to death. Can't you see we're busy, or do you perhaps 

 think you're getting a story?" And with that he shoved the newsman 

 through the nearest door and slammed it behind him. Then he 

 shouted, with the same volume he had employed to make himself 

 heard over the roaring wind outside, "Now, look here! If you think 

 the company's permission for you to be aboard allows you to go 

 snooping around and getting in the way every time some bloody 

 fool slips a whale, you're very much mistaken and I'll have you con- 

 fined to your quarters." 



The newsman stared at him in stunned silence, not that he could 

 speak, anyway, because the lower half of his face was frozen into a 

 solid cake of ice. Life on a floating factory was strange at the best 

 of times, but sometimes it became completely impossible. Getting 

 in the way, indeed! And then a sudden thought struck him. What on 

 earth had any of this to do with the manager? And when he realized 

 that it had absolutely nothing to do with him, the newsman tried 

 to laugh, but when he found he couldn't, another thought raced 

 through his mind and he dived for the nearest companionway, head- 

 ing for the hospital to get very definitely in somebody's way as 

 quickly as possible, because he was convinced that his face was frost- 

 bitten and that his jaw was going to fall off. 



But the newsman's jaw and the manager's corvette were both 

 saved by the skills of the technicians, and both returned whole and 

 sound to their home ports. What is more, the expedition's quota was 

 exceeded. 



The two phases of modern whaling, which we call Norwegian I 

 and II, blend one into the other during the brief period of a single 

 decade, between 1910 and 1920. We can divide the two phases just 

 as well at the beginning of this decade — when the factory ship first 



