ery
merry meal, interrupted before it was over by the arrival of the
committee. Slight sketch of procedure agreed upon, self appointed
spokesman, and the deputation sets off. Walk all through Matafele, all
along Mulinuu, come to the King's house; he has verbally refused to see
us in answer to our letter, swearing he is gasegase (chief sickness, not
common man's) and indeed we see him inside in bed. It is a miserable low
house, better houses by the dozen in the little hamlet (Tanugamanono) of
bushmen on our way to Vailima; and the President's house in process of
erection just opposite! We are told to return to-morrow; I refuse; and
at last we are very sourly received, sit on the mats, and I open out,
through a very poor interpreter, and sometimes hampered by unacceptable
counsels from my backers. I can speak fairly well in a plain way now. C.
asked me to write out my harangue for him this morning; I have done so,
and couldn't get it near as good. I suppose (talking and interpreting) I
was twenty minutes or half an hour on the deck; then his majesty replied
in the dying whisper of a big chief; a few words of rejoinder
(approving), and the deputation withdrew, rather well satisfied.

A few days ago this intervention would have been a deportable offence;
not now, I bet; I would like them to try. A little way back along
Mulinuu, Mrs. Gurr met us with her husband's horse; and he and she and
Lloyd and I rode back in a heavenly moonlight. Here ends a chapter in
the life of an island politician! Catch me at it again; 'tis easy to go
in, but it is not a pleasant trade. I have had a good team, as good as I
could get on the beach; but what trouble even so, and what fresh
troubles shaping. But I have on the whole carried all my points; I
believe all but one, and on that (which did not concern me) I had no
right to interfere. I am sure you would be amazed if you knew what a
good hand I am at keeping my temper, talking people over, and giving
reasons which are not my reasons, but calculated for the meridian of
the particular objection; so soon does falsehood await the politician
in his whirling path.

TO HENRY JAMES

Stevenson had again been reading Mr. James's _Lesson of the Master_;
Adela Chart is the heroine of the second story in that collection,
called _The Marriages_.

[_Vailima, October 1891._]

MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--From this perturbed and hunted being expect but a
line, and that line shall be but a