both to himself and to his
old home." The Count then told us that when he was stopping at
Vailima he used to have his bath daily on the verandah below his room.
One lovely morning he got up very early, got into the bath, and
splashed and sang, feeling very well and very happy, and at last
beginning to sing very loudly, he forgot Mr Stevenson altogether. All
at once there was Stevenson himself, his hair all ruffled up, his eyes
full of anger. "Man," he said, "you and your infernal row have cost
me more than two hundred pounds in ideas," and with that he was gone,
but he did not address the Count again the whole of that day. Next
morning he had forgotten the Count's offence and was just as friendly
as ever, but--the noise was never repeated!

Another of the Count's stories greatly amused the visitors:

"An English lord came all the way to Samoa in his yacht to see Mr
Stevenson, and found him in his cool Kimino sitting with the ladies,
and drinking tea on his verandah; the whole party had their feet bare.
The English lord thought that he must have called at the wrong time,
and offered to go away, but Mr Stevenson called out to him, and
brought him back, and made him stay to dinner. They all went away to
dress, and the guest was left sitting alone in the verandah. Soon
they came back, Mr Osbourne and Mr Stevenson wearing the form of dress
most usual in that hot climate a white mess jacket, and white
trousers, but their feet were still bare. The guest put up his
eyeglass and stared for a bit, then he looked down upon his own
beautifully shod feet, and sighed. They all talked and laughed until
the ladies came in, the ladies in silk dresses, befrilled with lace,
but still with bare feet, and the guest took a covert look through his
eyeglass and gasped, but when he noticed that there were gold bangles
on Mrs Strong's ankles and rings upon her toes, he could bear no more
and dropped his eyeglass on the ground of the verandah breaking it all
to bits."

Miss Stubbs met on the other side of the island a photographer who told
her this:

"I had but recently come to Samoa," he said, "and was standing one day
in my shop when Mr Stevenson came in and spoke. 'Man,' he said, 'I
tak ye to be a Scotsman like mysel'.'

"I would I could have claimed a kinship," deplored the photographer,
"but, alas! I am English to the backbon