Harvey T. Sweigert: Refresh my memory, Cannon. Why haven't I fired you?
Oliver Cromwell Cannon: Well, I'm engaged to your daughter.
Harvey T. Sweigert: Oooooh, why does that always slip my mind?
Oliver Cromwell Cannon: She thinks she can make something of me, Sir. It's a tremendous challenge...
Harvey T. Sweigert: That's what I get for sending her to Radcliffe!
Harvey T. Sweigert: How would you like to take a flying trip to the South Pole?
Oliver Cromwell Cannon: I beg your pardon, Sir.
Harvey T. Sweigert: I said, how would you like to...
Oliver Cromwell Cannon: I understand, Sir. But, literally?
Harvey T. Sweigert: You've heard of the South Pole?
Oliver Cromwell Cannon: Yes, Sir, it's, er, way down there.
Oliver Cromwell Cannon: [reading from a letter] From the Pentagon... invited a party of newsmen to the Antarctic. "Time" will be there, "Life", "Newsweek"; just about every major publication in the racket.
Oliver Cromwell Cannon: Sir, it isn't that I wouldn't want to go, it's just that...
Harvey T. Sweigert: But?
Oliver Cromwell Cannon: But, er, well I catch cold very easily.
Harvey T. Sweigert: What are you, a coward?
Oliver Cromwell Cannon: Yes, Sir.
Harvey T. Sweigert: Imagine it, Cannon. The mysterious white waste. Crevasses, ice caves, sunshine six months a year and darkness the rest. In the winter, the temperature falls to 100 degrees below zero. And the wind shrieks at 200 miles an hour.
Oliver Cromwell Cannon: That's good.
Harvey T. Sweigert: That's wonderful! The Antarctic is the last frontier. Where else on this tame and fallen earth, can Man still hurl his challenge into Nature's teeth and cry out "I defy you!"
Harvey T. Sweigert: Just think of the heroes who first dared that fearful continent: Ernest Shackleton, Finn Ronne, Roald Amundsen; why their very names ring like the trumpets of adventure. Richard Evelyn Byrd, Robert Falcon Scott...
Oliver Cromwell Cannon: Oliver Cromwell Cannon!
Harvey T. Sweigert: You are hereby promoted to the position of Antarctic correspondent. Don't forget, our readers want stories. There's talk of oil, gold but above all, what are the Russians up to? Goodbye, my boy. Oh, you're lucky, lucky...!
Oliver Cromwell Cannon: Sir, if, if you don't mind my asking, how did you happen to choose me?
Harvey T. Sweigert: No one else would take the job!
[slams the door]
