to present me at the last moment on my leaving by coach with that
volume, with his name on it, and with pencilled notes here and there, but
had merely given it me to read and return. In the circumstances I may
perhaps be excused quoting from a letter dated Castleton of Braemar,
September 1881, in illustration of what I have said--

"MY DEAR DR JAPP,--My father has gone, but I think I may take it upon
me to ask you to keep the book. Of all things you could do to endear
yourself to me you have done the best, for, from your letter, you have
taken a fancy to my father.

"I do not know how to thank you for your kind trouble in the matter of
_The Sea-Cook_, but I am not unmindful. My health is still poorly,
and I have added intercostal rheumatism--a new attraction, which sewed
me up nearly double for two days, and still gives me 'a list to
starboard'--let us be ever nautical. . . . I do not think with the
start I have, there will be any difficulty in letting Mr Henderson go
ahead whenever he likes. I will write my story up to its legitimate
conclusion, and then we shall be in a position to judge whether a
sequel would be desirable, and I myself would then know better about
its practicability from the story-telling point of view.--Yours very
sincerely, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON."

A little later came the following:--

"THE COTTAGE, CASTLETON OF BRAEMAR.
(_No date_.)

"MY DEAR DR JAPP,--Herewith go nine chapters. I have been a little
seedy; and the two last that I have written seem to me on a false
venue; hence the smallness of the batch. I have now, I hope, in the
three last sent, turned the corner, with no great amount of dulness.

"The map, with all its names, notes, soundings, and things, should
make, I believe, an admirable advertisement for the story. Eh?

"I hope you got a telegram and letter I forwarded after you to
Dinnat.--Believe me, yours very sincerely, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON."

In the afternoon, if fine and dry, we went walking, and Stevenson would
sometimes tell us stories of his short experience at the Scottish Bar,
and of his first and only brief. I remember him contrasting that with
his experiences as an engineer with Bob Bain, who, as manager, was then
superintending the building of a breakwater. Of that time, too, he told
the choicest stories, and especially of how, against all orders, he
bribed Bob with five shillings t