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like my right eye. I had counted on one boy, I found I had two in
my audience. My father caught fire at once with all the romance
and childishness of his original nature. His own stories, that
every night of his life he put himself to sleep with, dealt
perpetually with ships, roadside inns, robbers, old sailors, and
commercial travellers before the era of steam. He never finished
one of these romances; the lucky man did not require to! But in
Treasure Island he recognised something kindred to his own
imagination; it was HIS kind of picturesque; and he not only heard
with delight the daily chapter, but set himself acting to
collaborate. When the time came for Billy Bones's chest to be
ransacked, he must have passed the better part of a day preparing,
on the back of a legal envelope, an inventory of its contents,
which I exactly followed; and the name of 'Flint's old ship'--the
Walrus--was given at his particular request. And now who should
come dropping in, ex machina, but Dr. Japp, like the disguised
prince who is to bring down the curtain upon peace and happiness in
the last act; for he carried in his pocket, not a horn or a
talisman, but a publisher--had, in fact, been charged by my old
friend, Mr. Henderson, to unearth new writers for Young Folks.
Even the ruthlessness of a united family recoiled before the
extreme measure of inflicting on our guest the mutilated members of
The Sea Cook; at the same time, we would by no means stop our
readings; and accordingly the tale was begun again at the
beginning, and solemnly re-delivered for the benefit of Dr. Japp.
From that moment on, I have thought highly of his critical faculty;
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