That's the golden rule," said Garratt Skinner.

"No brandy, Wallie.

Keep that in your flask!" Pierre Delouvain, however, followed a practice not unknown amongst Chamonix guides.
"Absinthe is good on the mountains," said he.
When they rose, the order of going was changed.

Pierre Delouvain, who had led all the morning, now went last, and Garratt Skinner led.

He led quickly and with great judgment or knowledge--Pierre Delouvain at the end of the rope wondered whether it was judgment or knowledge--and suddenly Walter Hine found himself standing on the crest with Garratt Skinner, and looking down the other side upon a glacier far below, which flows from the Mur de la Cote on the summit ridge of Mont Blanc into the Brenva glacier.
"That's famous," cried Garratt Skinner, looking once more at his watch.
He did not say that they had lost yet another hour upon the face of the buttress.