"Well then, gentlemen, it is settled. Traprock must go."
The company as one man echoed the President's remark.
"Traprock must go!"
With the sound of this verdict ringing in my ears I delivered a short speech of appreciation. Little did I realize at the time the sinister influences which had been at work to bring about the very result which so filled my heart with pride. Little did I know that among the men who sat by my side that evening sharing with me the hand and hip of friendship, passing me an occasional peanut from the store which the President was cracking with his gavel, little did I imagine that among them were some to whom the words "Traprock must go" meant a far different thing from what it did to me. But as old Tertullian has it, "Nemo me impune lacessit"—"What you don't know won't hurt you"; and so from a full heart I thanked them.
At the end of twenty minutes, President Waxman interrupted me to ask, "When can you start?"
I heard one of the older members whisper, "Not 'when can he start?' When can he stop?"
"Now." I answered with characteristic brevity, giving the whispering member a look which he will never forget.
The meeting broke up forthwith. Before leaving the Rotunda, Adolph Banderholtz, Secretary-for-Polar-Affairs of the Explorers Union (which I shall hereafter refer to as the E.U.) handed me a typewritten list of names.
"These are our nominations for the expedition," he said with his shallow smile. "You will find them admirably equipped in their respective departments. Good-bye."
TRIPLETT THE UNDAUNTED
Captain Ezra Triplett, the navigator of Dr. Traprock's metamorphic yawl needs no introduction to students of marine accomplishment. To lay-readers perhaps a brief preamble is in order. Born a not-too-simple son of New Bedford, Mass., Triplett has climbed the rope-ladder of success from cabin-boy to Captaincy, from poop-deck to mast-head. Gifted with uncanny nautical skill this Captain Courageous is equally at home on ice.
Seldom if ever has the camera been more successful in catching the very soul of the sitter, who in this case is standing. But whether assis or debout Ezra Triplett is always master of the situation. The animals in the background are not dogs but Amoks, those wild vulpines of the North which have been trained by hand to obey their master's voice.
The whip, coiled snake-like about the Captain's friendly artics, is an entirely superfluous emblem of authority, for this remarkable man achieves his results by the power of the human eye alone. In this connection it should be noted that Triplett is limited to a single optic. The one on the right as one faces the photograph is phony, the original having literally leaped out of its socket many years ago during an exciting kangaroo hunt. The eye, rolling away into the bush, was never recovered in spite of a handsome reward-notice in the Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide press. Thus Triplett lost not only the sight of the eye but the eye itself. What the Captain achieves with his single orb is nothing short of amazing and we have frequently seen him face-down such fearless fellow-men as George Jean Nathan merely by turning towards them his blind eye.
Both attitude and costume are superbly characteristic, the massive oak-timbered frame filling to repletion the bearskin jerkin with its practical one-man-top. As a protection for the nether limbs Triplett invariably wore light woolen pajamas with gee-string exits and entrances. This scant covering was ample even in the severest weather, owing to the fact that Triplett's own limbs are clothed with a heavy coat of natural fur which, in his own words, is "grown on the place."