'TREASURE ISLAND'
SIR,—Mr. Golding may be interested in another numerical slip of Stevenson's. In Chapter 21 he writes that seven or eight men supported the assault on the block-house by covering fire. Now he is most careful with hi, figures right through the story (for example, twenty-seven people embarked at Bristol, and it is possible to trace their several fates and still make the count come right at the end), so this is surprising, because, as there were seven in the assault party, there can only have been six giving covering fire. Assuming that Silver left one man at least on board the Hispaniola (and that could hardly have been the man who was shot by the Doctor from the jolly-boat, for he died the following evening), there can only have been five.—Yours faithfully,
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