Tony, who had a sense of humor, soon devised a favorite way to start or end all conversation. He would turn suddenly to Gene (whom he called Henry, after his favorite radio character), and order with a mischievous grin:
“Come on Henry – time to put on the pot!”
“Henry” and I never failed to enter into the spirit of the game, with elaborate suggestions for the making and pouring of the coffee. We frequently adopted ludicrously exaggerated drawing-room tones and gestures for this ritual, broadly burlesquing what we fondly believed was the true Park Avenue manner.
Later, I think, it must have been this continual practice of deliberate idiocy that kept us from going really insane in our exposure, starvation, and thirst.
The Raft: The Courageous Struggle of Three Naval Airmen against the Sea by Robert Trumbull. 1942. United States Naval Institute. p. 38
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