Derelict
Terry, whose qualifications for collecting and editing a book of chanteys are exceptional.”
It may be taken for granted, then, that when Treasure Island was published, this chantey consisted of four lines only, and that they had originated with R. L. S. One can imagine him smacking his lips over them, like Sentimental Tommy! And consider the cunning of the man—and his self-restraint—in writing only four!
But these lines were to waken an echoing chord in an American brain, and the result was to be—not a chantey, to be sure!—but one of the most truly piratical, bloodthirsty songs ever written.
In the city of Louisville, Kentucky, there lives a quiet and retiring man by the name of Young Ewing Allison. He is slightly built, not in any way piratical in appearance, somewhat deaf, with an eye full of humor, and a reputation for kindly satire. At the time Treasure Island appeared, he was twenty-eight years old, and was city editor of the Louisville Courier–Journal. He had started his wage-earning career as a printer’s devil at the age of thirteen, and had been scented with printer’s ink ever since. History does not record when he first read Stevenson’s romance, but in 1891, three years after he had left daily newspaper
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