THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



sionally deposited on him while he was asleep, but that he 

 thought it was a little too strong to drop wet boots, newly 

 arrived from the stables, on top of his belongings. 

 Priestley and Murray had no floor-space at all in their 

 cubicle, as their beds were built of empty dog-biscuit 

 boxes. A division of boxes separated the two sleeping- 

 places, and the whole cubicle was garnished on Priestley's 

 side with bits of rock, ice-axes, hammers and chisels, and 

 on Murray's with biological requisites. 



Next came one of the first cubicles that had been 

 built. Joyce and Wild occupied the " Rogues' Retreat," 

 a painting of two very tough characters drinking beer 

 out of pint mugs, with the inscription The Rogues' 

 Retreat painted underneath, adorning the entrance to 

 the den. The couches in this house were the first to 

 be built, and those of the opposite dwelling, " The 

 Gables," were copied from their design. The first bed 

 had been built in Wild's store-room for secrecy's sake ; it 

 was to burst upon the view of every one, and to create 

 mingled feelings of admiration and envy, admiration for 

 the splendid design, envy of the unparalled luxury 

 provided by it. However, in building it, the designer 

 forgot the size of the doorway he had to take it through, 

 and it had ignominously to be sawn in half before it 

 could be passed out of the store-room into the hut. The 

 printing press and type case for the polar paper occupied 

 one corner of this cubicle. 



The next and last compartment was the dwelling- 

 place of the Professor and Mawson. It would be difficult 

 to do justice to the picturesque confusion of this com- 

 partment; one hardly likes to call it untidy, for the 

 things that covered the bunks by daytime could be 

 placed nowhere else conveniently. A miscellaneous 

 assortment of cameras, spectroscopes, thermometers, 

 microscopes, electrometers and the like lay in profusion 



144 



