Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 1, 1894 - Miscellanies, Volume I

MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS
readiness to issue other thirty-three. If you love
art, folly, or the bright eyes of children, speed to
Pollock's or to Clarke's of Garrick Street. In
Pollock's list of publicanda I perceive a pair of my
ancient aspirations : Wreck Ashore and Siocteen-
String Jack ; and I cherish the behef that w^hen
these shall see once more the light of day, B. Pollock
will remember this apologist. But, indeed, I have
a dream at times that is not all a dream. I seem
to myself to wander in a ghostly street — E. W., I
think, the postal district — close below the fool's cap
of St. Paul's, and yet within easy hearing of the
echo of the Abbey Bridge. There in a dim shop,
low in the roof, and smelling strong of glue and
footlights, I find myself in quaking treaty with great
Skelt himself, the aboriginal, all dusty from the
tomb. I buy, with what a choking heart — I buy
them all, all but the pantomimes ; I pay my mental
money, and go forth ; and lo ! the packets are dust.
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