rebellious, and too impatient to follow the ordinary rules of life
or the sage advice, "Jowk and let the jaw gae by."

An impression has arisen, because of his revolt in these years
against convention and creeds, that he was thwarted and
unappreciated in his home and its surroundings. On the contrary, he
was at liberty to indulge his Bohemian tastes and do much as he
listed. His father gave him a seemingly inadequate allowance. Yet
Thomas Stevenson was not a miserly man. He begged his son to go to
his tailor's, for he disapproved of the youth's scuffy, mounte-
bankish appearance. He supplied him with an allowance for travel--in
fact, R. L. S. had all his bills paid, and his own study in a very
hospitable home. R, L. S. owned books, and jewels were the only
things he felt tempted to buy. The 1 pound a month allowance, when
he left school, raised soon after to 82 pounds a year, was to keep
the money from dropping out of that hole in the pocket of his ragged
jacket, which never seemed to get sewed up. Books he had in plenty,
but his parents naturally did not treat him to strings of flashing
stones to wear over his shabby velvet coat, or twine round his
battered straw hat. His money affairs, like the table of Weir of
Hermiston, were likely all his life "just mismanaged." By the time
he settled in Samoa, his literary earnings were thousands a year;
and by then his quiet-living, hard-working father was dead, leaving
an ample fortune. Still he seemed haunted by fear of lack of means.

Louis' love and admiration for his father was deep and sincere. At
his home, when guests gathered round the engineer's table, the boy,
with his eyes sparkling, listened to his father's "strange, humorous
vein of talk," then glanced round with a smile of expectation to see
how much others appreciated their host's well-told tales. "My father