perceived, his wife and son, together, in the window. They needed his protection; he gave it them. But after Q? What comes next? After Q there are a number of letters the last of which is scarcely visible to mortal eyes, but glimmers red in the distance. Z is only reached once by one man in a generation. Still, if he could reach R it would be something. Here at least was Q. He dug his heels in at Q. Q he was sure of. Q he could demonstrate. If Q then is Q— R—. Here he knocked his pipe out, with two or three resonant taps on the handle of the urn, and proceeded. “Then R ...” He braced himself. He clenched himself.
Qualities that would have saved a ship’s company exposed on a broiling sea with six biscuits and a flask of water — endurance and justice, foresight, devotion, skill, came to his help. R is then — what is R?
A shutter, like the leathern eyelid of a lizard, flickered over the intensity of his gaze and obscured the letter R. In that flash of darkness he heard people saying — he was a failure — that R was beyond him. He would never reach R. On to R, once more. R—
Qualities that in a desolate expedition across the icy solitudes of the Polar region would have made him the leader, the guide, the counsellor,
