From Lord Monteagle to Horace Darwin 20 November 1872

My dear Horace

Here I am at home— I was awfully disappointed not to find you at Camb. last Sun—wk. when there was such a gathering but I hope Malvern continues salutary  you don't seemed bored. However if you are any time at a loss for gentle employment I sh^d. be very glad if you could draw me out that drag you showed me at Camb. as I want to get one made for my bicycle but couldn't draw the figure myself; but don't bother abt. it as I am not likely to bicycle for some time. Let me hear how you're getting on any way 

I have the house topsy turvy with plumbers & the place topsy turvy with reservoirs & drains & shall have plenty to do the 2 months I am at home with making myself comfortable & trying to discharge the duties of a country gentleman, a rôle I don't readily adopt & w^d. gladly surrender into bitter hands—w^d. in fact sell my birthright with the greatest delight for a mess of potash if a proper Jacob w^d. turn up.

By the way did I tell you my Jacob is (i.e. my young brother) had turned up? only he's much more like [Erase]—-save for hairiness which he lacks. But I'm afraid he w^d.n't do much better than I.

I was sorry to see George looking so seedy & he doesn't seem to have found his peculiar place (as I hope you have in Malvern). Frank seemed very fit though & I hope is sanguine abt. his profession though his remarks had rather a deterring effect on the K whom I wish more & more to go in for medicine.

John Farmer was up at Camb. that Sund: proselytizing—successfully I think. His wind fiddle has made progress & is abt. to be patented; there was a very nice little tip invented just before & [saw] him:—the intervals on his string had been much too great for any degree of execution—almost like those on a double bass when it suddenly struck Baillie—Hamilton who was working at it that if the string could be twisted into a spiral without altering its conditions of vibration, stability of resistence, &c., the intervals w^d. be much diminished; his experiment has succeeded & now the interval on the string corresponding to a tone in the scale is an inch instead of 3 or 4 inches! I haven't seen & don't completely realize it from J F's description.

I don't expect the instrument is nearly perfected yet for he is so sanguine & sees his success so far off that one can't take all he says as strictly true but he thinks it will to patent it so as to have a proof of his originating the idea though some one might very easily rob him of the money by making some slight improvement & repatenting it—but he doesn't care for the money.

Goodbye old chap | Get well speedily | y^rs. M.