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petrol and the oil supplies—arrangements must be made for shipping those. And then a mooring for the seaplane must be laid at every place they were to go to.
    What was really needed was a small supporting expedition to go on ahead of them by ship, to meet the machine at Julianehaab, to make the camp for them and help him with the seaplane. If he could get a really good photographer, one who was used to seaplanes, he would be a godsend to them.
    He wondered what sort of place Julianehaab would prove to be.
    He supposed they all spoke Danish there.
    He slept.
    He woke early, slept again for a few minutes, and woke finally at about a quarter past seven. Breakfast was not tillnine, but he could not remain in bed till then. He got up, had a bath, shaved and dressed, and was downstairs by about twenty minutes past eight. The aged parlourmaid was doing out the study; she gave him a black look. To escape her he went out into the garden.
    For a time he walked up and down the lawn in the sun, looking at the flowers, and enjoying the cool freshness of the morning. He reflected that these Oxford people knew how to make themselves comfortable. But then, of course, with Lockwood Tubes in the background a man could make himself comfortable anywhere.
    He wondered what sort of a reception he would get at Coventry.
    From her bedroom window Alix saw him walking up and down the lawn, and her lips tightened a little. There was a difficult little matter that she had to deal with; she might as well take this opportunity and get it over. Indeed it looked a good one. She finished dressing quickly, gave a final pat to the heavy coils over her ears, and went down to the garden.
    He saw her coming, dressed in a black serge skirt and a black-and-white-striped blouse that made her look middle-aged. He wondered absently if anyone had ever told her what a frump she looked. Those stockings, and those shoes. He supposed that that was what they did at Oxford. He wondered how old she was—somewhere between twenty and twenty-five probably, but she looked older. He did not care much about her, but he went to meet her with a smile.
    “Good morning,” he said. “It certainly is a lovely day. I’ve been admiring your garden.”
    Her attention was diverted from her object; she was very fond of flowers. “The polyanthus are nice, aren’t they?” she said. “Did you sleep all right, Mr. Ross?”
    “Very well indeed, thank you.”
    She stooped and picked up a golf-ball that was lying on the lawn. Then she turned, and walked beside him up the garden. “I’ve been wanting to have a talk, Mr. Ross,” she said.
    He raised his eyebrows. “Surely, Miss Lockwood.”
    She said: “I know what my father asked you to come down about. It’s about this idea he has of going in an aeroplane to Greenland, isn’t it?”
    Ross nodded. “We were discussing it yesterday afternoon.”
    She said: “It’s a tremendous undertaking, isn’t it?”
    The pilot considered for a minute. “I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” he said at last. “It’s an unusual sort of flight, but with proper organisation, and in summer weather, I don’t think it’s so bad. It means a lot of hard work of course.”
    She said eagerly: “I know it does—it means a frightful lot of hard work. It’s a job for a young man to do.” She hesitated, and then said: “My father gets so wrapped up in his archaeological work that he overlooks the practical considerations, Mr. Ross. But he could never make a journey of that sort at his age. He’ll be fifty-nine next October, nearly sixty. It’s difficult to speak about his age in front of him, because he’s so sensitive about it. So I thought if I could have a talk with you, I could tell you how the matter stands.”
    The pilot rubbed his chin. “I didn’t mean there’d be much work in it for him,” he said. “I was thinking of myself, I’m afraid.”
    “But in a trip like that there’d be great hardships for my father. His health