Books he had in plenty,
but his parents naturally did not treat him to strings of flashing
stones to wear over his shabby velvet coat, or twine round his
battered straw hat. His money affairs, like the table of Weir of
Hermiston, were likely all his life "just mismanaged." By the time
he settled in Samoa, his literary earnings were thousands a year;
and by then his quiet-living, hard-working father was dead, leaving
an ample fortune. Still he seemed haunted by fear of lack of means.
Louis' love and admiration for his father was deep and sincere. At
his home, when guests gathered round the engineer's table, the boy,
with his eyes sparkling, listened to his father's "strange, humorous
vein of talk," then glanced round with a smile of expectation to see
how much others appreciated their host's well-told tales. "My father
was always my dearest," he wrote. This was a high certificate of
appreciation, when we remember he had the most devoted of mothers.
It hurt the son to the quick to deal his "dearest" a staggering
blow, and decline to follow his hereditary profession.
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