"cut" command not working as expected

[David selby <debian@pusspaws.net>]

I need to get the first two file names from a directory ...
My code

directory=$(ls -r --format=single-column)

works perfect and gives me ...

20030617Jun17.tar.gz 20030616Jun16.tar.gz 20030615Jun15.tar.gz 
20030614Jun14.tar.gz 20030613Jun13.tar.gz 20030612Jun12.tar.gz 
20030611Jun11.tar.gz 20030610Jun10.tar.gz 20030609Jun09.tar.gz 
20030608Jun08.tar.gz 20030607Jun07.tar.gz 20030606Jun06.tar.gz 
20030605Jun05.tar.gz 20030604Jun04.tar.gz 20030603Jun03.tar.gz 
20030602Jun02.tar.gz 20030601Jun01.tar.gz 20030531May31.tar.gz 
20030530May30.tar.gz 20030529May29.tar.gz 20030528May28.tar.gz 
20030527May27.tar.gz 20030526May26.tar.gz 20030525May25.tar.gz 
20030524May24.tar.gz 20030523May23.tar.gz 20030522May22.tar.gz 
20030521May21.tar.gz 20030520May20.tar.gz 20030519May19.tar.gz 
20030518May18.tar.gz 20030517May17.tar.gz 20030516May16.tar.gz 
20030515May15.tar.gz 20030514May14.tar.gz 20030513May13.tar.gz 
20030512May12.tar.gz 20030511May11.tar.gz 20030510May10.tar.gz 
20030509May09.tar.gz 20030508May08.tar.gz 20030507May07.tar.gz 
20030506May06.tar.gz 20030505May05.tar.gz 20030504May04.tar.gz 
20030503May03.tar.gz 20030426Apr26.tar.gz 20030419Apr19.tar.gz 
20030412Apr12.tar.gz 20030405Apr05.tar.gz 20030329Mar29.tar.gz 
20030322Mar22.tar.gz 20030315Mar15.tar.gz 20030308Mar08.tar.gz 
20030301Mar01.tar.gz 20030222Feb22.tar.gz 20030215Feb15.tar.gz 
20030208Feb08.tar.gz 20030205Feb05.tar.gz

I want to cut the first two file names from the list ... To my way of 
thinking this should be easy ...

cut -d' ' -f2 $directory

The xterm goes nuts and ends up in hyroglyphics ! At a guess I would say 
that the white space between .gz & 200... may not be space but may have 
a different ascii value. I have not found a utility to display raw ASCII 
for a file yet to check this out.

I am a relative begginer at learning bash ...

Any suggestions

Dave