r here for anti-Germanism. Then
there's _The Pearl Fisher_ about a quarter done; and there's various
short stories in various degrees of incompleteness. De'il, there's
plenty grist; but the mill's unco slaw! To-morrow or next day, when the
mail's through, I'll attack one or other, or maybe something else. All
these schemes begin to laugh at me, for the day's far through, and I
believe the pen grows heavy. However, I believe _The Wrecker_ is a good
yarn of its poor sort, and it is certainly well nourished with facts; no
realist can touch me there; for by this time I do begin to know
something of life in the XIXth century, which no novelist either in
France or England seems to know much of. You must have great larks over
masonry. You're away up in the ranks now and (according to works that I
have read) doubtless design assassinations. But I am an outsider; and I
have a certain liking for a light unto my path which would deter me from
joining the rank and file of so vast and dim a confraternity. At your
altitude it becomes (of course) amusing and perhaps useful. Yes, I
remember the L.J.R.,[26] and the constitution, and my homily on Liberty,
and yours on Reverence, which was never written--so I never knew what
reverence was. I remember I wanted to write Justice also; but I forget
who had the billet. My dear papa was in a devil of a taking; and I had
to go and lunch at Ferrier's in a strangely begrutten state, which was
_infra dig_. for a homilist on liberty. It was about four, I suppose,
that we met in the Lothian Road,--had we the price of two bitters
between us? questionable!

Your bookseller (I have lost his letter, I mean the maid has, arranging
my room, and so have to send by you) wrote me a letter about Old Bailey
Papers. Gosh, I near swarfed; dam'd, man, I near had dee'd o't. It's
only yin or twa volumes I want; say 500 or 1000 pages of the stuff; and
the worthy man (much doubting) proposed to bury me in volumes. Please
allay his rage, and apologise that I have not written him direct. His
note was civil and purposelike. And please send me a copy of Henley's
_Book of Verses_; mine has disappeared.

R. L. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

_Nov. 25th, 1891._

MY DEAR COLVIN, MY DEAR COLVIN,--I wonder how often I'm going to write
it. In spite of the loss of three days, as I have to tell, and a lot of
weeding and cacao planting, I have finished since the mail left four
chapters, forty-eight pages of my Samoa h