You said nothing about my subject for a poem. Don’t you like it? My own fishy eye has been fixed on it for prose, but I believe it could be thrown out finely in verse, and hence I resign and pass the hand. Twig the compliment?—Yours affectionately R. L. S. TO W. E. HENLEY [_Hyères_, _May_ 1883.] . . . THE influenza has busted me a good deal; I have no spring, and am headachy. So, as my good Red Lion Counter begged me for another Butcher’s Boy—I turned me to—what thinkest ’ou?—to Tushery, by the mass! Ay, friend, a whole tale of tushery. And every tusher tushes me so free, that may I be tushed if the whole thing is worth a tush. _The Black Arrow_: _A Tale of Tunstall Forest_ is his name: tush! a poor thing! Will _Treasure Island_ proofs be coming soon, think you? I will now make a confession. It was the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot John Silver in _Treasure Island_. Of course, he is not in any other quality or feature the least like you; but the idea of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by the sound, was entirely taken from you. Otto is, as you say, not a thing to extend my public on. It is queer and a little, little bit free; and some of the parties are immoral; and the whole thing is not a romance, nor yet a comedy; nor yet a romantic comedy; but a kind of preparation of some of the elements of all three in a glass jar. I think it is not without merit, but I am not always on the level of my argument, and some parts are false, and much of the rest is thin; it is more a triumph for myself than anything else; for I see, beyond it, better stuff. I have nine chapters ready, or almost ready, for press. My feeling would be to get it placed anywhere for as much as could be got for it, and rather in the shadow, till one saw the look of it in print.—Ever yours, PRETTY SICK. TO W. E. HENLEY _La Solitude_, _Hyères-les-Palmiers_, _May_ 1883. MY DEAR LAD,—The books came some time since, but I have not had the pluck to answer: a shower of small troubles having fallen in, or troubles that may be very large. I have had to incur a huge vague debt for cleaning sewers; our house was (of course) riddled with hidden cesspools, but that was infallible. I have the fever, and feel the duty to work very heavy on me at times; yet go it must. I have had to leave _Fontainebleau_, when three hours would finish it, and go full-tilt at tushery for a while. But it will come soon. I think I can give you a good article on Hokusai; but that is for afterwards; _Fontainebleau_ is first in hand By the way, my view is to give the _Penny Whistles_ to Crane or Greenaway. But Crane, I think, is likeliest; he is a fellow who, at least, always does his best.