Symbiosis or S&M Double Stuff

[jbor]

on 22/1/02 1:43 PM, Terrance at lycidas2 at earthlink.net wrote:

> Right, but I can't imagine Mason and Dixon not trading barbs. Can you?

Except that they're doing it *in company* here - perhaps for the first time,
certainly for the first time to this degree - and they seem to have been
pushed to vent a certain sense of frustration on *one another* by virtue of
the potential hazards of the mission and the treacherous currents of the
conversational situations they have found themselves in. They almost seem to
have 'lost it' for a moment, and the exaggerated reactions of the three
Americans (286.4) to their digs at each other are noteworthy. In belittling
one another and bickering like this it sort of proves that they might be
turned against each other, if needs be, which is what Ben Franklin was
angling for back in Philadelphia. When they take those personal potshots
they come across as a bit silly too.
 
> Torpedo? Oh yes, well we did have a bit on the electrical etymology back
> at 
> 
> Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001
> Subject: MDMD(6): 'Torpedick'
> 
> Hope that helps. 

Thanks, it does. So, are both the references (at 77.10 and here at 286.1) to
the electric eel? (I.e. for Dixon, being able to whistle is a "freedom
almost Torpedick", and the "Torpedo" which Mason describes at 286.7?)

> Quite right, I wrote Gershom, but S/B  George at 276. "Don't suppose you
> have a copy of that Contract..."

Right you are. Thanks.

best