Read "The New Men" by C.P. Snow online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Although none of us knew it at the time. Luke and Martin did not toss up. Even they themselves had not settled, until March was on them, which should ‘go first': and how they settled it, they kept secret. It was long afterwards that I found out what had happened.
Martin had been as good as his word, no better, no worse. With his feeling for precision and formality, he had actually written Luke a note a week before the experiment, suggesting that they tossed up, defining what the toss should mean – heads Martin went first, tails Luke. Luke would not have it. Swearing at getting a letter from Martin whom he saw every day, he said that the extraction was his idea, his ‘bit of nonsense', and the least he could do was have the ‘first sniff'.