Kathleen: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

By the time that Carter and King had written their chapters and
read them aloud, the Scorpions were all frankly adorers of
Kathleen; by midterm she had become an obsession. Eric Twiston
and Bob Graham, "doing a Cornstalk" (as walking on Cornmarket
Street is elegantly termed) were wont to dub any really
delightful girl they saw as "a Kathleen sort of person." At the
annual dinner of the club, which took place in a private dining
room at the "Clarry" (the Clarendon Hotel) in February, Forbes
was called upon to respond to the toast "The Real Kathleen." His
voice, tremulous with emotion and absinthe frappe, nearly failed
him; but he managed to stammer a few phrases which, thought at
the time to be extemporaneous, called forth loud applause; but it
was found later that he had jotted them down on the tablecloth
during the soup and fish courses. "Fellow Scorpers," he said, "I
mean you chaps, look here, I'm not much at this dispatch-box
business, but--hem--I want to say that I regard Kathleen with
feelings of iridescent emotion. I feel sure that she is a
pronounced brunette and that the Blue Flapper we all used to see
at the East Ocker is nowhere. I've been playing lackers
(lacrosse) this term and I give you my word that when I've been
bloody well done in and had an absolute needle of funk I had only
to think of Kathleen to buck me up. Hem. Now gentlemen, you may
think I'm drunk (loud cries of _No_!) but I want to say in truth
and soberness that any man who thinks he's got Kathleen for
bondwoman--hem--has me to reckon with!"

The applause at this speech was so immoderate that a party
of Boston ladies dining with a Chautauqua lecturer in the
Clarendon's main dining room, shuddered and began looking up
time-tables to Stratford.

By this time the serial story had grown to the length of seven or
eight chapters, and the Scorpions became so engrossed in the
fortunes of the Kenyons (so, for convenience, they had dubbed
Kathleen's family) that at the dinner a separate health was drunk
to each character in the story, and one of the members was called
upon to reply. Falstaff Carter responded to the toast to "Joe,"
and recounted his secret investigations into the number of
members of the university who bore that name. He claimed to have
tabulated from the university almanac 256 men so christened, and
offered to go into the life history of any or all of them. He
said that he was happy to say that the only Joseph who seemed at
all likely to be a poet was a scrubby little man at Teddy Hall,
who wore spectacles and a ragged exhibitioner's gown and did not
seem to threaten a serious rivalry to any Scorpion bent on
supplanting him. "I also find," he added, "that the master of the
New College and Magdalen beagles is called Joe. He is a member of
the Bullingdon, and if he is the cheese it's distinctly mooters
whether any of the Scorpers have a ghostly show; but I vote,
gentlemen, that we don't crock at this stage of the game."

It was decided at the dinner that during the ensuing Easter
vacation the Scorpions should make a trip to Wolverhampton, en
masse, for the purpose of picketing Bancroft Road and finding out
what Kathleen was really like. And then, after singing "langers
and godders" (Auld Lang Syne and God Save the King) the meeting
broke up and the members dispersed darkly in various directions
to avoid the proctors.

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