K. learnt
later, and he made another date when he found his host had missed
most of the fun."
Mr. Engels: "He would sit around consuming home-made ale by the
quart; said the head of the philosophy faculty made the best brew in
the college. Enjoyed little drives round the countryside. The faculty
were a little shy of inviting him."
"In a lecture he got an immense laugh by calling Queen Elizabeth an
'old crock.' He then laughed above all the rest."
Mr. Engels noticed mannerisms: "The constant shifting of his great
bulk around," "rotating while he was talking," "flipping his
eyeglasses," "lumbering on to the stage, going through all his
pockets, finally finding a piece of dirty yellow paper and talking
from it as if most laboriously gathered and learned notes. But the
paper was only for show. Father Burke saw him get out of the cab, he
got on to the stair landing and then saw G.K.'s yellow paper on the
ground. He had delivered his whole course with hardly a single
note--occasionally looked through material for a quarter of an hour
or so before speaking." All thought him a great entertainer as well
as an informing talker. "No one enjoyed himself more than he did."
Trying to get him for an informal gathering they mentioned they had
some Canadian Ales--quite something in Prohibition days.
G.K.: "The ales have it."
Johnnie: "He'd chat all the time he was driving."
Father Leo L. Ward: "The problem of getting G.K. to and fro in a
coupe was only solved by backing him in."
They remembered G.K. "in Charley's big chair, his hands barely
touching over his great expanse."
They recalled that on receiving his honorary degree he said the last
time he received one at Edinburgh they tapped him with John Knox's
hat. He did not expect anything so drastic here: perhaps they might
tap him with Tom Heflin's sombrero.* When he had been invited to Notre
Dame he was not certain where it was but with a name like that, even
if it were in the mountains of the moon, he should feel at home. "If
I ever meet anybody who suggests there's something Calvinistic or
Puritanical in Catholicism I shall ask, 'Have you ever heard of
the University of Notre Dame?'"
[* Tom Heflin was the fiercely anti-Catholic Senator from Alabama.]
Johnnie: "He'd do anything she'd say, or Miss Collins. They
certainly had that man by the neck, but they took wonderful care of
him."
Mr. O'Grady: "It was a very
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