ott, nothing for
Louis Stevenson, nothing for plenty of other people, but quite handsome
for me. In 1897, when we were living in Tedworth Square, London, and I
was writing the book called "Following the Equator" my average was
eighteen hundred words a day; here in Florence (1904), my average seems
to be fourteen hundred words per sitting of four or five hours.[16]

I was deducing from the above that I have been slowing down steadily in
these thirty-six years, but I perceive that my statistics have a
defect: three thousand words in the spring of 1868 when I was working
seven or eight or nine hours at a sitting has little or no advantage
over the sitting of to-day, covering half the time and producing half
the output. Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the
arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to
Disraeli would often apply with justice and force:

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

[_Dictated, January 23, 1907._]--The proverb says that Providence
protects children and idiots. This is really true. I know it because I
have tested it. It did not protect George through the most of his
campaign, but it saved him in his last inning, and the veracity of the
proverb stood confirmed.

[Sidenote: (1865.)]

I have several times been saved by this mysterious interposition, when I
was manifestly in extreme peril. It has been common, all my life, for
smart people to perceive in me an easy prey for selfish designs, and I
have walked without suspicion into the trap set for me, yet have often
come out unscathed, against all the likelihoods. More than forty years
ago, in San Francisco, the office staff adjourned, upon conclusion of
its work at two o'clock in the morning, to a great bowling establishment
where there were twelve alleys. I was invited, rather perfunctorily, and
as a matter of etiquette--by which I mean that I was invited politely,
but not urgently. But when I diffidently declined, with thanks, and
explained that I knew nothing about the game, those lively young fellows
became at once eager and anxious and urgent to have my society. This
flattered me, for I perceived no trap, and I innocently and gratefully
accepted their invitation. I was given an alley all to myself. The boys
explained the game to me, and they also explained to me that there would
be an hour's play, and that the player who scored the fewest ten-strikes
in the hour would have to pr