“Ha! Mister Brack! Well, struck, Gardy; go on.”
“As Captain Brack has failed to inform me what it is we are about to see I, of course, can not be expected to express any opinion on it,” I said. “But as concerns ‘the bare, crawling stuff of life,’ I will reply that Life no longer crawls, nor is it bare.”
Chanler turned his eyes upon Brack.
“Your shot, cappy. What say to that?”
Brack bowed.
“I will reply by asking Mr. Pitt why he thinks life no longer is bare and crawling?”
“Because,” said I, “the mind of man has decreed that it should not be so. Because mas has erected a civilization in order to insure that life shall not be bare and crawling.”
“Civilization is not the point,” said Brack. “We spoke of Life. We, as we stand here, clothed, barbered, wearing the products of machinery to hide our bodies, we are Civilization. We, as we enter the bathtub in the morning, are Life—forked radishes.” He rolled his great head far back and looked down his thick cheeks at me appraisingly. “Some are small radishes; others are large.”
“Ha! Rather raw on you with that last one, Gardy. Small and large ones. You are small, you know, Gardy, compared to me or the captain.”
“Size can scarcely matter to radishes,” I said.