senseless.'

'Oh, it's that weary writing.'

'And the worst of it is he will talk to-morrow as if he had done
wonders.'

'That's the way with the whole clanjam-fray of them.'

'Yes, but as usual you will humour him, mother.'

'Oh, well, it pleases him, you see,' says my mother, 'and we can
have our laugh when his door's shut.'

'He is most terribly handless.'

'He is all that, but, poor soul, he does his best.'




CHAPTER VII - R. L. S.


These familiar initials are, I suppose, the best beloved in recent
literature, certainly they are the sweetest to me, but there was a
time when my mother could not abide them. She said 'That Stevenson
man' with a sneer, and, it was never easy to her to sneer. At
thought of him her face would become almost hard, which seems
incredible, and she would knit her lips and fold her arms, and