We passed out into the dining saloon—a counterpart, I learned later, of the dining-room in Mr. Gale’s former cottage at Hillcrest. We were presently joined by a stout and grizzled man of perhaps sixty, with a slight sinister obliquity in one eye. He was arrayed in a handsome blue uniform, and was presented to me as Mr. Joseph Biffer, captain of the Billowcrest. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mr. Sturritt was also to be with us. The customs on the Billowcrest, as I presently learned, were quite democratic, and William Sturritt, though nominally steward, remained the trusted friend and companion of Chauncey Gale, as he had been for many years. It is true there was an officers’ mess, at which both Mr. Sturritt and Captain Biffer usually preferred to dine, but at the Admiral’s table (they had conferred the title of Admiral on Gale) there was always a welcome for his officers, while on occasions such as this they were often present by request. Gale and his daughter were seated at opposite ends of the table, Ferratoni and myself next Miss Gale, while Captain Biffer and Mr. Sturritt occupied the same relative position to the Admiral. The Admiral wasted no time in coming to the fun. “Captain Biffer,” he said, “we want you to take us to the South Pole.” Mr. Biffer continued the grim process of seasoning his soup for several seconds without replying. Perhaps some rumor of the expedition had already come to him. Then he fixed his sound eye severely on Gale, while he withered the rest of us, and particularly myself, with the other. “When do you want to start?” he asked. There was that about Mr. Biffer’s tone and attitude which indicated, so far as he was concerned, an entire lack of humor in the proposition. Even Gale, I thought, seemed a trifle subdued as he answered: “Oh, I don’t know; we’ll consider that after Mr. Chase has told us what we are going to need to be ready. In three or four months, perhaps.” Once more the deflected vision of Captain Biffer laid its scorn heavily upon us. “And get down there and stuck in the ice below Cape Horn about the middle of March, just when their winter and six months’ night begins.” It was a clean hit for the Captain, and I gave him credit. Gale was clearly out of it for the time being, and looked at me helplessly. His very dismay, however, encouraged me. A man must be in earnest, I thought, to look like that. I hastened to his rescue. “I have naturally considered the Antarctic solar conditions,” I said, with some dignity, though I confess that with the Captain’s piercing searchlight upon me, the latter was not easy to maintain. “I am aware that their seasons are opposed to ours, and that the year at the poles is divided into a day and a night of six months each.” Gale, who had been regarding me anxiously, at this point relieved himself in an undertone. “Six months,” he murmured. “Think of going out to make a night of it in a country like that! Oh, Lord, what is life without a latch-key?”