ght that his
illness might one day make him a helpless invalid.

The splendid part to think of is that no hint of his dark days and pains
crept into his writings or saddened those who came to see him. Complaint
he kept to himself, prayed that he might "continue to be eager to be
happy," lived with the best that was in him from day to day, and the
words that went forth from his sick-room have cheered and encouraged
thousands.

When asked why he wrote so many stories of pirates and adventurers with
few women to soften them he replied: "I suppose it's the contrast; I
have always admired great strength, even in a pirate. Courage has
interested me more than anything else."

He and his stepson had grown to be great chums. At Silverado Lloyd had
been seized with a desire to write stories and had set up a toy
printing-press which turned off several tales. At Davos Platz they both
tried their hand at illustrating these stories with pictures cut on
wood-blocks and gayly colored. Lloyd's room was quite a gallery of these
artistic attempts. But their favorite diversion was to play at a war
game with lead soldiers. In after-years Lloyd wrote his recollections of
the days they spent together enjoying this fun and he says: "The war
game was constantly improved and elaborated, until from a few hours, a
war took weeks to play, and the critical operations in the attic
monopolized half our thoughts. This attic was a most chilly and dismal
spot, reached by a crazy ladder, and unlit save for a single frosted
window; so low at the eaves and so dark that we could seldom stand
upright, nor see without a candle. Upon the attic floor a map was
roughly drawn in chalks of different colors, with mountains, rivers,
towns, bridges, and roads of two classes. Here we would play by the
hour, with tingling fingers and stiffening knees, and an intentness,
zest, and excitement that I shall never forget.

"The mimic battalions marched and counter-marched, changed by measured
evolutions from column formation into line, with cavalry screens in
front and massed support behind, in the most approved military fashion
of to-day."

Neither of them ever grew too old for this sport. Year after year they
went back to the game. Even when they went to Samoa they laid out a
campaign room with maps chalked on the floor.

In the spring of 1885 Thomas Stevenson purchased a house at Bournemouth,
England, near London, as a present for his daughter-in-law.

They named