The Stark Munro Letters | Page 6

lodgings with him, and was introduced to Mrs.
Cullingworth. She was a timid, little, sweet-faced, grey-eyed woman,
quiet-voiced and gentle-mannered. You had only to see the way in
which she looked at him to understand that she was absolutely under
his control, and that do what he might, or say what he might, it would
always be the best thing to her. She could be obstinate, too, in a gentle,

dove-like sort of way; but her obstinacy lay always in the direction of
backing up his sayings and doings. This, however, I was only to find
out afterwards; and at that, my first visit, she impressed me as being
one of the sweetest little women that I had ever known.
They were living in the most singular style, in a suite of four small
rooms, over a grocer's shop. There was a kitchen, a bedroom, a
sitting-room, and a fourth room, which Cullingworth insisted upon
regarding as a most unhealthy apartment and a focus of disease, though
I am convinced that it was nothing more than the smell of cheeses from
below which had given him the idea. At any rate, with his usual energy
he had not only locked the room up, but had gummed varnished paper
over all the cracks of the door, to prevent the imaginary contagion from
spreading. The furniture was the sparest possible. There were, I
remember, only two chairs in the sitting- room; so that when a guest
came (and I think I was the only one) Cullingworth used to squat upon
a pile of yearly volumes of the British Medical Journal in the corner. I
can see him now levering himself up from his lowly seat, and striding
about the room roaring and striking with his hands, while his little wife
sat mum in the corner, listening to him with love and admiration in her
eyes. What did we care, any one of the three of us, where we sat or how
we lived, when youth throbbed hot in our veins, and our souls were all
aflame with the possibilities of life? I still look upon those Bohemian
evenings, in the bare room amid the smell of the cheese, as being
among the happiest that I have known.
I was a frequent visitor to the Cullingworths, for the pleasure that I got
was made the sweeter by the pleasure which I hoped that I gave. They
knew no one, and desired to know no one; so that socially I seemed to
be the only link that bound them to the world. I even ventured to
interfere in the details of their little menage. Cullingworth had a fad at
the time, that all the diseases of civilisation were due to the
abandonment of the open-air life of our ancestors, and as a corollary he
kept his windows open day and night. As his wife was obviously
fragile, and yet would have died before she would have uttered a word
of complaint, I took it upon myself to point out to him that the cough
from which she suffered was hardly to be cured so long as she spent her
life in a draught. He scowled savagely at me for my interference; and I
thought we were on the verge of a quarrel, but it blew over, and he

became more considerate in the matter of ventilation.
Our evening occupations just about that time were of a most
extraordinary character. You are aware that there is a substance, called
waxy matter, which is deposited in the tissues of the body during the
course of certain diseases. What this may be and how it is formed has
been a cause for much bickering among pathologists. Cullingworth had
strong views upon the subject, holding that the waxy matter was really
the same thing as the glycogen which is normally secreted by the liver.
But it is one thing to have an idea, and another to be able to prove it.
Above all, we wanted some waxy matter with which to experiment. But
fortune favoured us in the most magical way. The Professor of
Pathology had come into possession of a magnificent specimen of the
condition. With pride he exhibited the organ to us in the class-room
before ordering his assistant to remove it to the ice- chest, preparatory
to its being used for microscopical work in the practical class.
Cullingworth saw his chance, and acted on the instant. Slipping out of
the classroom, he threw open the ice-chest, rolled his ulster round the
dreadful glistening mass, closed the chest again, and walked quietly
away. I have no doubt that to this day the disappearance of that waxy
liver is one of the most inexplicable mysteries in the career of our
Professor.
That evening, and for many evenings to come,