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not yet at college. In truth it was so by a set of lucky
accidents; had not Dr. Japp come on his visit, had not the tale
flowed from me with singular case, it must have been laid aside
like its predecessors, and found a circuitous and unlamented way to
the fire. Purists may suggest it would have been better so. I am
not of that mind. The tale seems to have given much pleasure, and
it brought (or, was the means of bringing) fire and food and wine
to a deserving family in which I took an interest. I need scarcely
say I mean my own.
But the adventures of Treasure Island are not yet quite at an end.
I had written it up to the map. The map was the chief part of my
plot. For instance, I had called an islet 'Skeleton Island,' not
knowing what I meant, seeking only for the immediate picturesque,
and it was to justify this name that I broke into the gallery of
Mr. Poe and stole Flint's pointer. And in the same way, it was
because I had made two harbours that the Hispaniola was sent on her
wanderings with Israel Hands. The time came when it was decided to
republish, and I sent in my manuscript, and the map along with it,
to Messrs. Cassell. The proofs came, they were corrected, but I
heard nothing of the map. I wrote and asked; was told it had never
been received, and sat aghast. It is one thing to draw a map at
random, set a scale in one corner of it at a venture, and write up
a story to the measurements. It is quite another to have to
examine a whole book, make an inventory of all the allusions
contained in it, and with a pair of compasses, painfully design a
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