We have just had a feast on my birthday at which we had three of the Ringaromas, and I wish they had been three _Curaçoas_—say yourself, Hoskin, and Burney the ever Great. (Consider this an invitation.) Our boys had got the thing up regardless. There were two huge sows—oh, brutes of animals that would have broken down a hansom cab—four smaller pigs, two barrels of beef, and a horror of vegetables and fowls. We sat down between forty and fifty in a big new native house behind the kitchen that you have never seen, and ate and public spoke till all was blue. Then we had about half an hour’s holiday with some beer and sherry and brandy and soda to restrengthen the European heart, and then out to the old native house to see a siva. Finally, all the guests were packed off in a trackless black night and down a road that was rather fitted for the _Curaçoa_ than any human pedestrian, though to be sure I do not know the draught of the _Curaçoa_. My ladies one and all desire to be particularly remembered to our friends on board, and all look forward, as I do myself, in the hope of your return.—Yours sincerely, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. And let me hear from you again! TO CHARLES BAXTER 1_st_ _Dec._ ’92. . . . I have a novel on the stocks to be called _The Justice-Clerk_. It is pretty Scotch, the Grand Premier is taken from Braxfield—(Oh, by the by, send me Cockburn’s _Memorials_)—and some of the story is—well—queer. The heroine is seduced by one man, and finally disappears with the other man who shot him. . . . Mind you, I expect the _Justice-Clerk_ to be my masterpiece. My Braxfield is already a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, and so far as he has gone _far_ my best character. [_Later_.] Second thought. I wish Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials quam primum_. Also, an absolutely correct text of the Scots judiciary oath. Also, in case Pitcairn does not come down late enough, I wish as full a report as possible of a Scotch murder trial between 1790–1820. Understand, _the fullest possible_. Is there any book which would guide me as to the following facts? The Justice-Clerk tries some people capitally on circuit. Certain evidence cropping up, the charge is transferred to the J.-C.’s own son. Of course, in the next trial the J.-C. is excluded, and the case is called before the Lord-Justice General. Where would this trial have to be? I fear in Edinburgh, which would not suit my view. Could it be again at the circuit town? ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. TO MRS. JENKIN _December_ 5_th_, 1892.