tty near useless. But, Lord love you,
October and November saw a great harvest. It might have affected the
price of paper on the Pacific coast. As for ink, they haven't any, not
what I call ink; only stuff to write cookery-books with, or the works of
Hayley, or the pallid perambulations of the--I can find nobody to beat
Hayley. I like good, knock-me-down black-strap to write with; that makes
a mark and done with it.--By the way, I have tried to read the
_Spectator_,[26] which they all say I imitate, and--it's very wrong of
me, I know--but I can't. It's all very fine, you know, and all that, but
it's vapid. They have just played the overture to _Norma_, and I know
it's a good one, for I bitterly wanted the opera to go on; I had just
got thoroughly interested--and then no curtain to rise.

I have written myself into a kind of spirits, bless your dear heart, by
your leave. But this is wild work for me, nearly nine and me not back!
What will Mrs. Carson think of me! Quite a night-hawk, I do declare. You
are the worst correspondent in the world--no, not that, Henley is
that--well, I don't know, I leave the pair of you to him that made
you--surely with small attention. But here's my service, and I'll away
home to my den O! much the better for this crack, Professor Colvin.

R. L. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

_608 Bush Street, San Francisco [January 10, 1880]._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is a circular letter to tell my estate fully. You
have no right to it, being the worst of correspondents; but I wish to
efface the impression of my last, so to you it goes.

Any time between eight and half-past nine in the morning, a slender
gentleman in an ulster, with a volume buttoned into the breast of it,
may be observed leaving No. 608 Bush and descending Powell with an
active step. The gentleman is R. L. S.; the volume relates to Benjamin
Franklin, on whom he meditates one of his charming essays. He descends
Powell, crosses Market, and descends in Sixth on a branch of the
original Pine Street Coffee House, no less; I believe he would be
capable of going to the original itself, if he could only find it. In
the branch he seats himself at a table covered with wax-cloth, and a
pampered menial, of High-Dutch extraction and, indeed, as yet only
partially extracted, lays before him a cup of coffee, a roll and a pat
of butter, all, to quote the deity, very good. A while ago and R. L. S.
used to find the supply of butter insufficient