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Despite the fact that much Hitchcock criticism would agree with the claim of William Rothman that “In Hitchcock's films the camera performs gestures that have the force of claims, demonstrations, and arguments,”1 it is rare that these “claims” and “arguments” are considered in anything other than a formalistic way.2 The “argument” that I would like to consider here and that I believe leads to one of the essential “arguments” on which Hitchcock's film is based is referred to in the title of this essay, which in turn refers to a scene where Roger Thornhill and Eve Kendall are conversing aboard a train, and Thornhill offers Ms. Kendall a light from his monogrammed matchbox, whose letters spell R.O.T. (see fig. 2).