not to tell it before) that he is
one of the most unlucky men I know, having put all his money into a
pharmacy at Hyeres, when the cholera (certainly not his fault) swept
away his customers in a body. Thus you can imagine the pleasure I have
to announce to him a spark of hope, for he sits to-day in his pharmacy,
doing nothing and taking nothing, and watching his debts inexorably
mount up.

To pass to other matters: your hand, you are perhaps aware, is not one
of those that can be read running; and the name of your daughter remains
for me undecipherable. I call her, then, your daughter--and a very good
name too--and I beg to explain how it came about that I took her house.
The hospital was a point in my tale; but there is a house on each side.
Now the true house is the one before the hospital: is that No. 11? If
not, what do you complain of? If it is, how can I help what is true?
Everything in the _Dynamiter_ is not true; but the story of the Brown
Box is, in almost every particular; I lay my hand on my heart and swear
to it. It took place in that house in 1884; and if your daughter was in
that house at the time, all I can say is she must have kept very bad
society.

But I see you coming. Perhaps your daughter's house has not a balcony at
the back? I cannot answer for that; I only know that side of Queen
Square from the pavement and the back windows of Brunswick Row. Thence I
saw plenty of balconies (terraces rather); and if there is none to the
particular house in question, it must have been so arranged to spite me.

I now come to the conclusion of this matter. I address three questions
to your daughter:--

1st. Has her house the proper terrace?
2nd. Is it on the proper side of the hospital?
3rd. Was she there in the summer of 1884?

You see, I begin to fear that Mrs. Desborough may have deceived me on
some trifling points, for she is not a lady of peddling exactitude. If
this should prove to be so, I will give your daughter a proper
certificate, and her house property will return to its original value.

Can man say more?--Yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

I saw the other day that the Eternal had plagiarised from _Lost Sir
Massingberd_: good again, sir! I wish he would plagiarise the death of
Zero.

TO W. H. LOW

The late Sir Percy and Lady Shelley had in these days attached
themselves warmly to R. L. S., and saw in his ways and character a
living image of those of