roducing him to various French people and taking him to
concerts and other places; so, his mother remarks, like Louis' other
teachers at home I think they found it pleasanter to talk to him then to
teach him."

After their return to Edinburgh came the time when, his school days
finished, Louis must make up his mind what his career is to be and train
himself for it.

Even then he knew what he wanted to do was to write. He had fitted up a
room on the top floor at Heriot Row as a study and spent hours there
covering paper with stories or trying to describe in the very best way
scenes which had impressed him. Most of these were discarded when
finished. "I liked doing them indeed," he said, "but when done I could
see they were rubbish." He never doubted, however, that some day his
attempts would prove worth while, if he could only devote his time to
learning to write and write well.

His father, he knew, had different plans for him, however. Of course,
Louis would follow in his footsteps and be the sixth Stevenson to hold a
place on the Board of Northern Lights. So, although he had little heart
in the work, he entered the University of Edinburgh and spent the next
three and a half years studying for a science degree.

The summer of 1868 he was sent with an engineering party to Anstruther,
on the coast, where a breakwater was being built. There he had his first
opportunity of seeing some of the practical side of engineering. It was
rough work, but he enjoyed it. Later he spent three weeks on Earraid
Island, off Mull, a place which left a strong impression on his mind and
figured afterward as the spot where David Balfour was shipwrecked.

Among the experiences at that time which pleased him most was a chance
to descend in a diver's dress to the foundation of the harbor they were
building. In his essays, "Random Memories," he tells of the "dizzy
muddleheaded joy" he had in his surroundings, swaying like a reed, and
grabbing at the fish which darted past him.

In writing afterward of these years he says: "What I gleaned I am sure I
do not know, but indeed I had already my own private determination to be
an author ... though I haunted the breakwater by day, and even loved the
place for the sake of the sunshine, the thrilling sea-side air, the wash
of the waves on the sea face, the green glimmer of the diver's helmets
far below.... My own genuine occupation lay elsewhere and my only
industry was in the hours when I was not o