this is the way the world ends

Many were the hand-shakings, and warm the welcome. How cosy and luxurious were our winter quarters after the wind-swept slopes of Erebus! and how delightful it was to pour our travellers’ tales into the ears of willing listeners! These tales probably lost nothing in the telling, from the fact that the doctor administered to each of us, just as an antidote to collapse, of course, a small dose of champagne. Fearing that our listeners might suffer from collapse through excess of strain upon their credulity, the doctor prescribed for all of them a similar treatment.