The Stark Munro Letters | Page 4

men. That might not count for much, for he was quite capable of idling
ostentatiously all day and then reading desperately all night; but start a
subject of your own for him, and then see his originality and strength.
Talk about torpedoes, and he would catch up a pencil, and on the back
of an old envelope from his pocket he would sketch out some novel
contrivance for piercing a ship's netting and getting at her side, which
might no doubt involve some technical impossibility, but which would
at least be quite plausible and new. Then as he drew, his bristling
eyebrows would contract, his small eyes would gleam with excitement,
his lips would be pressed together, and he would end by banging on the
paper with his open hand, and shouting in his exultation. You would
think that his one mission in life was to invent torpedoes. But next
instant, if you were to express surprise as to how it was that the
Egyptian workmen elevated the stones to the top of the pyramids, out
would come the pencil and envelope, and he would propound a scheme
for doing that with equal energy and conviction. This ingenuity was
joined to an extremely sanguine nature. As he paced up and down in his
jerky quick- stepping fashion after one of these flights of invention, he
would take out patents for it, receive you as his partner in the enterprise,
have it adopted in every civilised country, see all conceivable
applications of it, count up his probable royalties, sketch out the novel
methods in which he would invest his gains, and finally retire with the
most gigantic fortune that has ever been amassed. And you would be

swept along by his words, and would be carried every foot of the way
with him, so that it would come as quite a shock to you when you
suddenly fell back to earth again, and found yourself trudging the city
street a poor student, with Kirk's Physiology under your arm, and
hardly the price of your luncheon in your pocket.
I read over what I have written, but I can see that I give you no real
insight into the demoniac cleverness of Cullingworth. His views upon
medicine were most revolutionary, but I daresay that if things fulfil
their promise I may have a good deal to say about them in the sequel.
With his brilliant and unusual gifts, his fine athletic record, his strange
way of dressing (his hat on the back of his head and his throat bare), his
thundering voice, and his ugly, powerful face, he had quite the most
marked individuality of any man that I have ever known.
Now, you will think me rather prolix about this man; but, as it looks as
if his life might become entwined with mine, it is a subject of
immediate interest to me, and I am writing all this for the purpose of
reviving my own half-faded impressions, as well as in the hope of
amusing and interesting you. So I must just give you one or two other
points which may make his character more clear to you.
He had a dash of the heroic in him. On one occasion he was placed in
such a position that he must choose between compromising a lady, or
springing out of a third- floor window. Without a moment's hesitation
he hurled himself out of the window. As luck would have it, he fell
through a large laurel bush on to a garden plot, which was soft with
rain, and so escaped with a shaking and a bruising. If I have to say
anything that gives a bad impression of the man, put that upon the other
side.
He was fond of rough horse-play; but it was better to avoid it with him,
for you could never tell what it might lead to. His temper was nothing
less than infernal. I have seen him in the dissecting-rooms begin to
skylark with a fellow, and then in an instant the fun would go out of his
face, his little eyes would gleam with fury, and the two would be
rolling, worrying each other like dogs, below the table. He would be
dragged off, panting and speechless with fury, with his wiry hair
bristling straight up like a fighting terrier's.
This pugnacious side of his character would be worthily used
sometimes. I remember that an address which was being given to us by

an eminent London specialist was much interrupted by a man in the
front row, who amused himself by interjecting remarks. The lecturer
appealed to his audience at last. "These interruptions are insufferable,
gentlemen," said he; "will no one free me from this annoyance?" "Hold
your tongue--you, sir, on the front bench," cried Cullingworth, in