274 WITH SCOTT: THE SILVER LINING. 



Scene : Breakfast in the Hut, July 3, 191 1. 

 G. T. (grabbing a fragment). " This isn't your bread, 

 Teddy ? " 



Teddy Evans. " Yes, it is." 



G. T. " Chuck over a bit in your lily-white fingers, 

 Marie ! " 



Marie. " Now that's what I call a well-cut piece of bread. 

 It's symmetrical about its axis." 



G. T. "Why don't you call it by its crystallographic 

 name ? It's an enantiomorph ! " 



Marie (mentally broken up, but stubborn !). " You're 

 taking refuge as usual in long, meaningless words ; anyhow, 

 that's a rotten word ; ante is Latin and morph is Greek. You 

 don't know how to cut bread." (Then he proceeded to 

 explain how I maltreated the loaf of our combined night- 

 watch supper.) 



G. T. " I know no one else is interested, but I don't see 

 why / shouldn't bore them also ! (Loud cheers.) That 



bread crust projected six inches, 

 and I only ate the overlap. You've 

 had all your own suppers, and 

 mine too, all the winter, you 

 miserable, cynical reactionary. 

 JU^^TS^ Anyhow enantiomorph is all 

 3711 ' Greek, and means * mirror-renec- 



tion.' So it just suits the case." 

 (Marie subsides, the Owner pushes off to his cubicle, and 

 I proceed to tease Ponting. Then the cag is continued in 

 my bunk by Marie solus, until I cry pax.) 



And that's how the long winter night passes ! 

 " July 4. — Have just been ragging * Silas' Wright as an 

 American (?) on this auspicious day. Whereupon he fell 

 upon me and succeeded in tearing my pocket. It is a snort- 

 ing day. Wind fifty miles per hour and temperature — 29 F. 

 I went out for a few minutes with bare hands, and it took me 

 about five minutes in the Hut to get them right. Yet it is 

 warmer than yesterday, when bare hands were possible. The 

 wind does it." 



We finished the day with the most exciting experience of 

 the winter. Life in the Hut, as will have been gathered, was 

 comfortable enough, and with such splendid mates, I felt it so 



