Note 5 — THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The allusion is to a specimen I had been used to hear quoted of the Duke of Wellington’s table-talk in his latter years. He had said that musk-rats were sometimes kept alive in bottles in India. Curate, or other meek dependent: “I presume, your Grace, they are small rats and large bottles.” His Grace: “No, large rats, small bottles; large rats, small bottles; large rats, small bottles.”