, from his eighth year, pass happy hours with a book,
any book so long as it did not mean lessons.

He was before very long a book-buyer as well as a book-lover, and he has
for ever immortalised, in the charming pages of _A Penny Plain and
Twopence Coloured_, that old bookshop (late J. L. Smith) at the corner
of Leith Walk, where eager boys without coppers were but coldly
received, but whence the fortunate capitalist could emerge, after having
spent his Saturday pocket-money, the proud possessor of plays positively
bristling with pirates and highwaymen. With these treasures he fled home
in the gathering dusk, while 'Leerie-Light-the-Lamps' was kindling his
cheery beacons along the streets, and, with pleasant terrors, devoured
the weird productions, finally adding to their weirdness by the garish
contents of a child's paint-box.

CHAPTER III

BOYHOOD AND COLLEGE DAYS

'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
--LONGFELLOW.

... 'Strange enchantments from the past
And memories of the friends of old,
And strong tradition binding fast
The "flying terms" with bands of gold.'
--ANDREW LANG.

The years 1861 and 1862 found Louis, with his childhood left behind him,
a boy among other boys who sat on the forms and who played in the yards
of the Academy, at which, during the greater part of the present
century, many of the sons of Edinburgh men, and indeed of Scotsmen
everywhere at home and abroad, have received their education.

From 1864 to 1867 he was principally at a Mr Thompson's school in
Frederick Street, and he studied from time to time with private tutors
at the different places to which his parents went for the benefit of
their own health or his. These rather uncommon educational experiences
were of far more value to him in after life than a steady attendance at
any one school, as they made him an excellent linguist and gave him,
from very youthful years, a wide knowledge of foreign life and foreign
manners. In 1862 the Stevenson family visited Holland and Germany, in
1863 they were in Italy, in 1864 in the Riviera, and at Torquay for some
months during the winter of 1865 and 1866; but after 1867 the family
life became more settled and was chiefly passed between Edinburgh and
Swanston.

In those days Louis was a lean, slim lad, inclined to b