DEAR BOY,--I am glad that ---- ---- has disappointed you. Depend upon it, nobody is so bad as to be worth scalping, except your dearest friends and parents; and scalping them may sometimes be avoided by scalping yourself. I grow daily more lymphatic and benign; bring me a dynamiter, that I may embrace and bless him!--So, if I continue to evade the friendly hemorrhage, I shall be spared in anger to pour forth senile and insignificant volumes, and the clever lads in the journals, not doubting of the eye of Nemesis, shall mock and gird at me. All this seems excellent news of the _Deacon_. But O! that the last tableau, on from Leslie's entrance, were re-written! We had a great opening there and missed it. I read for the first time _Captain Singleton_; it has points; and then I re-read _Colonel Jack_ with ecstasy; the first part is as much superior to _Robinson Crusoe_ as _Robinson_ is to--_The Inland Voyage_. It is pretty, good, philosophical, dramatic, and as picturesque as a promontory goat in a gale of wind. Get it and fill your belly with honey. Fanny hopes to be in time for the _Deacon_. I was out yesterday, and none the worse. We leave Monday. R. L. S. FOOTNOTES: [1] For many years fellow of and historical lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge. [2] _Paillon._ [3] The name of the Delectable Land in one of Heine's _Lieder_. [4] _Silverado Squatters_. [5] The allusion is to a specimen I had been used to hear quoted of the Duke of Wellington's table-talk in his latter years. He had said that musk-rats were sometimes kept alive in bottles in India. Curate, or other meek dependent: "I presume, your Grace, they are small rats and large bottles." His Grace: "No, large rats, small bottles; large rats, small bottles; large rats, small bottles." [6] _Croutes_: crude studies from nature. [7] Mr. J. Comyns Carr, at this time editing the English Illustrated Magazine. [8] A favourite Skye terrier. Mr. Stevenson was a great lover of dogs. [9] The essay so called, suggested by the death of J. W. Ferrier. See _Memories and Portraits_. VIII LIFE AT BOURNEMOUTH SEPTEMBER 1884--AUGUST 1887