_Vailima_, _Apia_, _Samoa_, _Nov._ 7, 1890.
I WISH you to add to the words at the end of the prologue; they run, I
think, thus, ‘And this is the yarn of Loudon Dodd’; add, ‘not as he told,
but as he wrote it afterwards for his diversion.’ This becomes the more
needful, because, when all is done, I shall probably revert to Tai-o-hae,
and give final details about the characters in the way of a conversation
between Dodd and Havers. These little snippets of information and
_faits-divers_ have always a disjointed, broken-backed appearance; yet,
readers like them. In this book we have introduced so many characters,
that this kind of epilogue will be looked for; and I rather hope, looking
far ahead, that I can lighten it in dialogue.
We are well past the middle now. How does it strike you? and can you
guess my mystery? It will make a fattish volume!
I say, have you ever read the _Highland Widow_? I never had till
yesterday: I am half inclined, bar a trip or two, to think it Scott’s
masterpiece; and it has the name of a failure! Strange things are
readers.