Like a right Scot, Mr. Stevenson was fond of "our auld ally of France,"
to whom our country and our exiled kings owed so much.
I rather vaguely remember another anecdote. He missed his train from
Edinburgh to London, and his sole portable property was a return ticket,
a meerschaum pipe, and a volume of Mr. Swinburne's poems. The last he
found unmarketable; the pipe, I think, he made merchandise of, but
somehow his provender for the day's journey consisted in one bath bun,
which he could not finish.
These trivial tales illustrate a period in his life and adventures which
I only know by rumour. Our own acquaintance was, to a great degree,
literary and bookish. Perhaps it began "with a slight aversion," but it
seemed, like madeira, to be ripened and improved by his long sea voyage;
and the news of his death taught me, at least, the true nature of the
affection which he was destined to win. Indeed, our acquaintance was
like the friendship of a wild singing bird and of a punctual,
domesticated barn-door fowl, laying its daily "article" for the breakfast-
table of the citizens. He often wrote to me from Samoa, sometimes with
news of native manners and folklore. He sent me a devil-box, the "luck"
of some strange island, which he bought at a great price. After parting
with its "luck," or fetish (a shell in a curious wooden box), the island
was unfortunate, and was ravaged by measles.
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