ho was most irritated was not he,
but his equally magnanimous contemporary. There was no thought of
rivalry or competition in either mind. The younger romancists who arose
after Mr. Stevenson went to Samoa were his friends by correspondence;
from them, who never saw his face, I hear of his sympathy and
encouragement. Every writer knows the special temptations of his tribe:
they were temptations not even felt, I do believe, by Mr. Stevenson. His
heart was far too high, his nature was in every way as generous as his
hand was open. It is in thinking of these things that one feels afresh
the greatness of the world's loss; for "a good heart is much more than
style," writes one who knew him only by way of letters.

It is a trivial reminiscence that we once plotted a Boisgobesque story
together. There was a prisoner in a Muscovite dungeon.

"We'll extract information from him," I said.

"How?"

"With corkscrews."

But the mere suggestion of such a process was terribly distasteful to
him; not that I really meant to go to these extreme lengths. We never,
of course, could really have worked together; and, his maladies
increasing, he became more and more a wanderer, living at Bournemouth, at
Davos, in the Grisons, finally, as all know, in Samoa. Thus, though we
corresponded, not unfrequently, I never was of the inner circle of his
friends. Among men there were school or college companions, or
companions of Paris or Fontainebleau, cousins, like Mr. R. A. M.
Stevenson, or a stray senior, like Mr. Sidney Colvin. From some of them,
or from Mr. Stevenson himself, I have heard tales of "the wild Prince and
Poins." That he and a friend travelled utterly without baggage, buying a
shirt where a shirt was needed, is a fact, and the incident is used in
"The Wrecker." Legend says that once he and a friend _did_ possess a
bag, and also, nobody ever knew why, a large bottle of scent. But there
was no room for the bottle in the bag, so Mr. Stevenson spilled the whole
contents over the other man's head, taking him unawares, that nothing
might be wasted. I think the tale of the endless staircase, in "The
Wrecker," is founded on fact, so are the stories of the _atelier_, which
I have heard Mr. Stevenson narrate at the Oxford and Cambridge Club. For
a nocturnal adventure, in the manner of the "New Arabian Nights," a
learned critic already spoken of must be consulted. It is not my story.
In Paris, at a cafe, I remember that Mr. S