Here was the man who had passed himself off as one of a group of steerage passengers on that memorable trip across the Atlantic on his way to Monterey in quest of the woman he loved, the man whose life was more vital in its love-motif than any of his own romances, the man who, in spite of ill-health and uncertainty of means, yet paid the price for his heart's desire.
"See here," said a lusty fellow, lurching up to him one day on deck. "You are not one of us, you are a gentleman in hard luck."
"But," added Stevenson triumphantly, in telling the story, "it was not until the end of the voyage that they found me out."
This points the saying that it was the great washed that Stevenson fought shy of, and not the greater unwashed, with whom he was always on the friendliest terms.
He talked delightfully, too, on events connected with his journey across the plains, which he made in an emigrant train, associating with Chinamen, who cooked their meals on board, and slept on planks let down from the side of the cars.
"The air was thick," said he, "and an Oriental thickness, at that."
But this period of his life was a painful subject for his mother, who was present, and some of his best stories were omitted on her account.
He told us, however, about being nearly lynched for throwing away a lighted match on the prairie. "And all the fuss," said he, "before I was made aware of the nature of my crime." Both his mother and Sydney Colvin had done their best to make him accept enough money, as a loan, to make this trip comfortable. But he had refused. He was, he explained, "doing that which neither his family nor friends could approve," and he would therefore accept no financial aid.
"Just before starting," said he, "being in need of money, I called at the Century office, where I had left some manuscript with the request for an early decision, but was politely shown the door."
Consternation seized us at this announcement, for all present knew the editor for a man of sympathy and heart. But Stevenson himself came to our relief with, "But Mr. Gilder was abroad that year."