ee I am in a grasping, dismal humour, and should, as we
Americans put it, quit writing. In truth, I am so haunted by anxieties
that one or other is sure to come up in all that I write.

I will send you herewith a Monterey paper where the works of R. L. S.
appear, nor only that, but all my life on studying the advertisements
will become clear. I lodge with Dr. Heintz; take my meals with Simoneau;
have been only two days ago shaved by the tonsorial artist Michaels;
drink daily at the Bohemia saloon; get my daily paper from Hadsell's;
was stood a drink to-day by Albano Rodriguez; in short, there is scarce
a person advertised in that paper but I know him, and I may add scarce a
person in Monterey but is there advertised. The paper is the marrow of
the place. Its bones--pooh, I am tired of writing so sillily.

R. L. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

[_Monterey, December 1879._]

TO-DAY, my dear Colvin, I send you the first part of the _Amateur
Emigrant_, 71 pp., by far the longest and the best of the whole. It is
not a monument of eloquence; indeed, I have sought to be prosaic in view
of the nature of the subject; but I almost think it is interesting.

Whatever is done about any book publication, two things remember: I
must keep a royalty; and, second, I must have all my books advertised,
in the French manner, on the leaf opposite the title. I know from my own
experience how much good this does an author with book _buyers_.

The entire _A. E._ will be a little longer than the two others, but not
very much. Here and there, I fancy, you will laugh as you read it; but
it seems to me rather a _clever_ book than anything else: the book of a
man, that is, who has paid a great deal of attention to contemporary
life, and not through the newspapers.

I have never seen my _Burns!_ the darling of my heart! I await your
promised letter. Papers, magazines, articles by friends; reviews of
myself, all would be very welcome. I am reporter for the Monterey
Californian, at a salary of two dollars a week! _Comment trouvez-vous
ca?_ I am also in a conspiracy with the American editor, a French
restaurant-man, and an Italian fisherman against the Padre. The enclosed
poster is my last literary appearance. It was put up to the number of
200 exemplaires at the witching hour; and they were almost all destroyed
by eight in the morning. But I think the nickname will stick. _Dos
Reales; deux reaux_; two bits; twenty-five cents; about a shi