r,
a light beams from the windows of 608 Bush, and he may be observed
sometimes engaged in correspondence, sometimes once again plunged in the
mysterious rites of the forenoon. About six he returns to the Branch
Original, where he once more imbrues himself to the worth of fivepence
in coffee and roll. The evening is devoted to writing and reading, and
by eleven or half-past darkness closes over this weird and truculent
existence.

As for coin, you see I don't spend much, only you and Henley both seem
to think my work rather bosh nowadays, and I do want to make as much as
I was making, that is L200; if I can do that, I can swim: last year with
my ill health I touched only L109; that would not do, I could not fight
it through on that; but on L200, as I say, I am good for the world, and
can even in this quiet way save a little, and that I must do. The worst
is my health; it is suspected I had an ague chill yesterday; I shall
know by to-morrow, and you know if I am to be laid down with ague the
game is pretty well lost. But I don't know; I managed to write a good
deal down in Monterey, when I was pretty sickly most of the time, and,
by God, I'll try, ague and all. I have to ask you frankly, when you
write, to give me any good news you can, and chat a little, but _just in
the meantime_, give me no bad. If I could get _Thoreau_, _Emigrant_ and
_Vendetta_ all finished and out of my hand, I should feel like a man who
had made half a year's income in a half year; but until the two last are
_finished_, you see, they don't fairly count.

I am afraid I bore you sadly with this perpetual talk about my affairs;
I will try and stow it; but you see, it touches me nearly. I'm the miser
in earnest now: last night, when I felt so ill, the supposed ague chill,
it seemed strange not to be able to afford a drink. I would have walked
half a mile, tired as I felt, for a brandy and soda.--Ever yours,

R. L. S.

TO W. E. HENLEY

_608 Bush Street, San Francisco, January 1880._

MY DEAR HENLEY,--You have got a letter ahead of me, owing to the Alpine
accumulation of ill news I had to stagger under. I will stand no
complaints of my correspondence from England, I having written near half
as many letters again as I have received.

Do not damp me about my work; _qu'elle soit bonne ou mauvaise_, it has
to be done. You know the wolf is at the door, and I have been seriously
ill. I am now at Thoreau. I almost blame myself for per