The Stark Munro Letters - Arthur Conan Doyle (free ebook reader for pc TXT) 📗

said I, feeling a little mortified, none the less.

“Look here, laddie,” he went on; “d’you see that pile of letters on the left of the table?”

“Yes.”

“Those are duns. And d’you see those documents on the right? Well, those are County Court summonses.

And, now, d’you see that;” he picked up a little ledger, and showed me three or, four names scribbled on the first page.

“That’s the practice,” he roared, and laughed until the great veins jumped out on his forehead. His wife laughed heartily also, just as she would have wept, had he been so disposed.

“It’s this way, Munro,” said he, when he had got over his paroxysm. “You have probably heard—in fact, I have told you myself—that my father had the finest practice in Scotland. As far as I could judge he was a man of no capacity, but still there you are—he had it.”

I nodded and smoked.

“Well, he’s been dead seven years, and fifty nets dipping into his little fish-pond. However, when I passed I thought my best move was to come down to the old place, and see whether I couldn’t piece the thing together again. The name ought to be worth something, I thought. But it was no use doing the thing in a half hearted way. Not a bit of use in that, Munro. The kind of people who came to him were wealthy, and must see a fine house and a man in livery. What chance was there of gathering them into a bow-windowed forty pound-a-year house with a grubby-faced maid at the door? What do you suppose I did? My boy, I took the governor’s old house, that was unlet—the very house that he kept up at five thousand a year. Off I started in rare style, and sank my last cent in furniture. But it’s no use, laddie.

I can’t hold on any longer. I got two accidents and an epileptic—twenty-two pounds, eight and sixpence—that’s the lot!

“What will you do, then?”

“That’s what I wanted your advice about. That’s why I wired for you. I always respected your opinion, my boy, and I thought that now was the time to have it.”

It struck me that if he had asked for it nine months before there would have been more sense in it. What on earth could I do when affairs were in such a tangle?

However, I could not help feeling complimented when so independent a fellow as Cullingworth turned to me in this way.

“You really think,” said I, “that it is no use holding on here?”

He jumped up, and began pacing the room in his swift jerky way.

“You take warning from it, Munro,” said he. “You’ve got to start yet. Take my tip, and go where no one knows you. People will trust a stranger quick enough; but if they can remember you as a little chap who ran about in knickerbockers, and got spanked with a hair brush for stealing plums, they are not going to put their lives in your keeping. It’s all very well to talk about friendship and family connections; but when a man has a pain in the stomach he doesn’t care a toss about all that. I’d stick it up in gold, letters in every medical classroom—have it carved across the gate of the University—that if a man wants friends be must go among strangers. It’s all up here, Munro; so there’s no use in advising me to hold on.”

I asked him how much he owed. It came to about seven hundred pounds. The rent alone was two hundred. He had already raised money on the furniture, and his whole assets came to less than a tenner. Of course, there was only one possible thing that I could advise.

“You must call your creditors together,” said I; “they can see for themselves that you are young and energetic—sure to succeed sooner or later. If they push you into a corner now, they can get nothing. Make that clear to them. But if you make a fresh start elsewhere and succeed, you may pay them all in full. I see no other possible way out of it.”

“I knew that you’d say that, and it’s just what I thought myself. Isn’t it, Hetty? Well, then, that settles it; and I am much obliged to you for your advice, and that’s all we’ll say about the matter to-night. I’ve made my shot and missed. Next time I shall hit, and it won’t be long either.”

His failure did not seem to weigh very heavily on his mind, for in a few minutes he was shouting away as lustily as ever. Whiskey and hot water were brought in, that we might all drink luck to the second venture.

And this whiskey led us to what might have been a troublesome affair. Cullingworth, who had drunk off a couple of glasses, waited until his wife had left the room, and then began to talk of the difficulty of getting any exercise now that he had to wait in all day in the hope of patients. This led us round to the ways in which a man might take his exercise indoors, and that to boxing. Cullingworth took a couple of pairs of gloves out of a cupboard, and proposed that we should fight a round or two then and there.

If I hadn’t been a fool, Bertie, I should never have consented. It’s one of my many weaknesses, that, whether it’s a woman or a man, anything like a challenge sets me off. But I knew Cullingworth’s ways, and I told you in my last what a lamb of a temper he has. None the less, we pushed back the table, put the lamp on a high bracket, and stood up to one another.

The moment I looked him in the face I smelled mischief. He had a gleam of settled malice in his eye.

I believe it was my refusal to back his paper which was running in his head. Anyway he looked as dangerous as he could look, with his scowling face sunk forward a little, his hands down near his hips (for his boxing, like everything else about him, is unconventional), and his jaw set like a rat-trap.

I led off, and then in he came hitting with both hands, and grunting like a pig at every blow. From what I could see of him he was no boxer at all, but just a formidable rough and tumble fighter. I was guarding with both hands for half a minute, and then was rushed clean off my legs and banged up against the door, with my head nearly through one of the panels. He wouldn’t stop then, though he saw that I had no space to get my elbows back; and he let fly a right-hander which would have put me into the hall, if I hadn’t slipped it and got back to the middle of the room.

“Look here, Cullingworth,” said I; “there’s not much boxing about this game.”

“Yes, I hit pretty hard, don’t I?”

“If you come boring into me like that, I’m bound to hit you out again,” I said. “I want to play light if you’ll let me.”

The words were not out of my mouth before he was on me like a flash. I slipped him again; but the room was so small, and he as active as a cat, that there was no getting away from him. He was on me once more with a regular football rush that knocked me off my balance.

Before I knew where I was he got his left on the mark and his right on my ear. I tripped over a footstool, and then before I could get my balance he had me on the same ear again, and my head was singing like a tea-kettle.

He was as pleased as possible with himself, blowing out his chest and slapping it with his palms as he took his place in the middle of the room.

“Say when you’ve had enough, Munro,” said he.

This was pretty stiff, considering that I had two inches the better of him in height, and as many stone in weight, besides being the better boxer. His energy and the size of the room had been against me so far, but he wasn’t to have all the slogging to himself in the next round if I could help it.

In he came with one of his windmill rushes. But I was on the look-out for him this time. I landed him with my left a regular nose-ender as he came, and then, ducking under his left, I got him a cross-counter on the jaw that laid him flat across his own hearthrug. He was up in an instant, with a face like a madman.

“You swine!” he shouted. “Take those gloves off, and put your hands up!” He was tugging at his own to get them off.

“Go on, you silly ass!” said I. “What is there to fight about?”

He was mad with passion, and chucked his gloves down under the table.

“By God, Munro,” he cried, “if you don’t take those gloves off, I’ll go for you, whether you have them on or not.”

“Have a glass of soda water,” said I.

He made a crack at me. “You’re afraid of me, Munro.

That’s what’s the matter with you,” he snarled.

This was getting too hot, Bertie. I saw all the folly of the thing. I believed that I might whip him; but at the same time I knew that we were so much of a match that we would both get pretty badly cut up without any possible object to serve. For all that, I took my gloves off, and I think perhaps it was the wisest course after all. If Cullingworth once thought he had the whiphand of you, you might be sorry for it afterwards.

But, as fate would have it, our little barney was nipped in the bud. Mrs. Cullingworth came into the room at that instant, and screamed out when she saw her husband. His nose was bleeding and his chin was all slobbered with blood, so that I don’t wonder that it gave her a turn.

“James!” she screamed; and then to me”: “What is the meaning of this, Mr. Munro?”

You should have seen the hatred in her dove’s eyes.

I felt an insane impulse to pick her up and kiss her.

“We’ve only been having a little spar, Mrs.

Cullingworth,” said I. “Your husband was complaining that he never got any exercise.”

“It’s all right, Hetty,” said he, pulling his coat on again. “Don’t be a little stupid. Are the servants gone to bed? Well, you might bring some water in a basin from the kitchen. Sit down, Munro, and light your pipe again.

I have a hundred things that I want to talk to you about.”

So that was the end of it, and all went smoothly for the rest of the evening. But, for all that, the little wife will always look upon me as a brute and a bully; while as to Cullingworth–-well, it’s rather difficult to say what Cullingworth thinks about the matter.

When I woke next morning he was in my room, and a funny-looking object he was. His dressing-gown lay on a chair, and he was putting up a fifty-six pound dumb-bell, without a rag to cover him. Nature didn’t give him a very symmetrical face, nor the sweetest of expressions; but he has a figure like a Greek statue. I was amused to see that both his eyes had a touch of shadow to them. It was his turn to grin when I sat up and found that my ear was about the shape and consistence of a toadstool.

However, he was all for peace that morning, and chatted away