for the sake of the young folks who may yet have some leeway to make
up, I shall indulge myself a little by quoting it: and, since I am on
that tack, follow it by another which presents Stevenson in his favourite
guise of quizzing his own characters, if not for his own advantage
certainly for ours, if we would in the least understand the fine moralist-
casuistical qualities of his mind and fancy:

THE DEVIL AND THE INNKEEPER

Once upon a time the devil stayed at an inn, where no one knew him,
for they were people whose education had been neglected. He was bent
on mischief, and for a time kept everybody by the ears. But at last
the innkeeper set a watch upon the devil and took him in the act.

The innkeeper got a rope's end.

"Now I am going to thrash you," said the inn-keeper.

"You have no right to be angry with me," said the devil. "I am only
the devil, and it is my nature to do wrong."

"Is that so?" asked the innkeeper.

"Fact, I assure you," said the devil.

"You really cannot help doing ill?" asked the innkeeper.

"Not in the smallest," said the devil, "it would be useless cruelty to
thrash a thing like me."

"It would indeed," said the innkeeper.

And he made a noose and hanged the devil.

"There!" said the innkeeper.

The deeper Stevenson goes, the more happily is he inspired. We could
scarcely cite anything more Stevensonian, alike in its humour and its
philosophy, than the dialogue between Captain Smollett and Long John
Silver, entitled _The Persons of the Tale_. After chapter xxxii. of
_Treasure Island_, these two puppets "strolled out to have a pipe before
business should begin again, and met in an open space not far from the
story." After a few preliminaries:

"You're a damned rogue, my man," said the Captain.

"Come, come, Cap'n, be just," returned the other. "There's no call to
be angry with me in earnest. I'm on'y a character in a sea story. I
don't really exist."

"Well, I don't really exist either," says the Captain, "which seems to
meet that."

"I wouldn't set no limits to what a virtuous character might consider
argument," responded Silver. "But I'm the villain of the tale, I am;
and speaking as one seafaring man to another, what I want to know is,
what's the odds?"

"Were you never taught your catechism?" said the Captain. "Don't you
know there's such a thing as an Author?"