the ignoble midst, without woodcuts, and attracted not the least
attention. I did not care. I liked the tale myself, for much the same
reason as my father liked the beginning; it was my kind of picturesque.
I was not a little proud of John Silver, also; and to this day rather
admire that smooth and formidable adventurer. What was infinitely more
exhilarating, I had passed a landmark; I had finished a tale, and
written "The End" upon my manuscript, as I had not done since "The
Pentland Rising," when I was a boy of sixteen not yet at college. In
truth it was so by a set of lucky accidents; had not Dr. Japp come on
his visit, had not the tale flowed from me with singular ease, it must
have been laid aside like its predecessors, and found a circuitous and
unlamented way to the fire. Purists may suggest it would have been
better so. I am not of that mind. The tale seems to have given much
pleasure, and it brought (or was the means of bringing) fire and food
and wine to a deserving family in which I took an interest. I need
scarcely say I mean my own.

But the adventures of "Treasure Island" are not yet quite at an end. I
had written it up to the map. The map was the chief part of my plot. For
instance, I had called an islet "Skeleton Island," not knowing what I
meant, seeking only for the immediate picturesque, and it was to justify
this name that I broke into the gallery of Mr. Poe and stole Flint's
pointer. And in the same way, it was because I had made two harbours
that the _Hispaniola_ was sent on her wanderings with Israel Hands. The
time came when it was decided to republish, and I sent in my manuscript,
and the map along with it, to Messrs. Cassell. The proofs came, they
were corrected, but I heard nothing of the map. I wrote and asked; was
told it had never been received, and sat aghast. It is one thing to draw
a map at random, set a scale in one corner of it at a venture, and write
up a story to the measurements. It is quite another to have to examine a
whole book, make an inventory of all the allusions contained in it, and
with a pair of compasses, painfully design a map to suit the data. I did
it; and the map was drawn again in my father's office, with
embellishments of blowing whales and sailing ships, and my father
himself brought into service a knack he had of various writing, and
elaborately _forged_ the signature of Captain Flint, and the sailing
directions of Billy Bones. But somehow it was never _Treasure Is