P's;
but I hope it wasn't you that made this paper--just for a last word--I
could not compliment you upon that. And Lord! if you could see the
ink--not what I am using--but the local vintage! They don't write much
here; I bet what you please.

R. L. S.

TO WILLIAM ARCHER

The Wondrous Tale referred to in the following is Stevenson's _Black
Arrow_, which had been through Mr. Archer's hands in proof.

_Saranac Lake, October 1887._

DEAR ARCHER,--Many thanks for the Wondrous Tale. It is scarcely a work
of genius, as I believe you felt. Thanks also for your pencillings;
though I defend "shrew," or at least many of the shrews.

We are here (I suppose) for the winter in the Adirondacks, a hill and
forest country on the Canadian border of New York State, very unsettled
and primitive and cold, and healthful, or we are the more bitterly
deceived. I believe it will do well for me; but must not boast.

My wife is away to Indiana to see her family; my mother, Lloyd, and I
remain here in the cold, which has been exceeding sharp, and the hill
air, which is inimitably fine. We all eat bravely, and sleep well, and
make great fires, and get along like one o'clock.

I am now a salaried party; I am a _bourgeois_ now; I am to write a
weekly paper for Scribner's, at a scale of payment which makes my teeth
ache for shame and diffidence. The editor is, I believe, to apply to
you; for we were talking over likely men, and when I instanced you, he
said he had had his eye upon you from the first. It is worth while,
perhaps, to get in tow with the Scribners; they are such thorough
gentlefolk in all ways that it is always a pleasure to deal with them. I
am like to be a millionaire if this goes on, and be publicly hanged at
the social revolution: well, I would prefer that to dying in my bed;
and it would be a godsend to my biographer, if ever I have one. What are
you about? I hope you are all well and in good case and spirits, as I am
now, after a most nefast experience of despondency before I left; but
indeed I was quite run down. Remember me to Mrs. Archer, and give my
respects to Tom.--Yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO W. E. HENLEY

"Gleeson White" in this letter means the collection of _Ballades,
Rondeaus, &c._, edited by that gentleman and dedicated to R. L. S.
(Walter Scott, 1887).

[_Saranac Lake, October 1887._]

MY DEAR LAD,--I hear some vague reports of a succ