But you can't pierce armour
which only drops after the shot has passed through.
What's the good of it? Why it keeps out the water.
That's the main thing, after all. I call it the
Cullingworth spring-shutter screen. Eh, what, Munro? I
wouldn't take a quarter of a million for the idea. You
see how it would work. Spring shutters are furled all
along the top of the bulwarks where the hammocks used to
be. They are in sections, three feet broad, we will say,
and capable when let down of reaching the keel.
Very well! Enemy sends a shot through Section A of the
side. Section A shutter is lowered. Only a thin film,
you see, but enough to form a temporary plug. Enemy's
ram knocks in sections B, C, D of the side. What do you
do? Founder? Not a bit; you lower sections B, C, and D
of Cullingworth's spring-shutter screen. Or you knock a
hole on a rock. The same thing again. It's a ludicrous
sight to see a big ship founder when so simple a
precaution would absolutely save her. And it's equally
good for ironclads also. A shot often starts their
plates and admits water without breaking them. Down go
your shutters, and all is well."
That's his idea, and he is busy on a model made out
of the steels of his wife's stays. It sounds plausible,
but he has the knack of making anything plausible when he
is allowed to slap his hands and bellow.
We are both writing novels, but I fear that the
results don't bear out his theory that a man may do
anything which he sets his will to.
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