Scientific romances Author:Charles Howard Hinton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: STELLA CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY I DO not imagine that I can do better than tell you the story of Churton's experiences at Beechwood Hall in his own words. T... more »here has been nothing analogous in my range of observation, and I shall not attempt to add any commentary of my own, or to improve the manner of his telling. I will simply put down in his own words, as nearly as I can recollect it, what he told me that afternoon, when we met again and renewed an old intimacy—interrupted for over seven years. If you wish to omit the few details I can give you as to our life at the crammer's at Blackheath, and the origin of the friendship between Frank Cornish and Steddy Churton, you can plunge into the next chapter, in which I am reporter merely. Here, however, I can tell you what manner of man Churton was before the sobering and refining influences he tells of acted on him. I can point out the defects of his character and record how those two, Cornish and he, in the shipwreck of their early opportunities, brought to shore their friendship merely. . What interested us all the most, in those Black- heath days, was London life—and a very worthless and corrupt side of London life. We never talked of any subject which could be set in an examination paper—and how few branches of learning are exempt! Our French lecturer found that we got a slightly better percentage of marks on Zola than on other authors, and accordingly we all read Zola—it stuck in our minds better. Hugh Stedman Churton we called Steddy, short for Stedman, and felt a slight sense of amusement in doing so, as he got into more rows than any of us; and yet we felt the name was somehow justified. He had true parental encouragement for his propensities. He wore an old silver watch. One day, when I was chaffing him abou...« less