itish University of Aberystwyth when Chesterton spoke
on "Liberty," taking first historically the fights of Barons against
despots, yeomen against barons, factory hands against owners, and
then giving as a modern instance the fight of the pedestrian to keep
the liberty of the highway, we are told that "the Senior History
Lecturer and some others were of the opinion that the whole thesis of
the address was a gigantic leg-pull."

Chesterton must have seen again the fixed stare on the faces of the
Nottingham tradesmen thirty years earlier on the famous occasion when
he himself "got up and played with water." But that earlier audience
had the intellectual advantage over the university professors that
they

Tried to find out what he meant
With infinite inquiring.

Gilbert often said that his comic illustrations ought not to have
prevented this. But it was really more his inability to resist making
himself into a figure of fun. He was funny and the jokes were funny
but they did prevent his really being given by all the position given
him by so many, of the modern Dr. Johnson.

It is possible, though not easy, to imagine Johnson dragged from the
station to his hotel by forty undergraduates of Aberystwyth while
members of the O.T.C. secured a footing on the carriage armed with a
battle axe (borrowed from the Arts Department), hoes, rakes, spades,
etc.--their officers having refused them the privilege of bearing
arms on the occasion.

But it is scarcely possible to imagine the Doctor called upon for a
speech standing on the steps of the hotel and saying, "You need never
be ashamed of the athletic prowess of this College. The Pyramids, we
are told, were built by slave labour. But the slaves were not
expected to haul the pyramids in one piece!"*

[* _Chesterton_ by Cyril Clemens, p. 50.]

In San Francisco I saw many people who had met Gilbert including a
journalist who took him to a "bootleg joint"--which is Western for a
Speakeasy. There he asked for "some specialty of the house" and was
offered a Mule.

"Six of these babies will put you on your ear," remarked the
bartender.

"What did he say about my ear?" Gilbert queried.

He downed three of the potent mixture, in spite of his theory against
cocktails and his host remarked his continued poise with admiration
while the bartender commented "He can take it," another slang
expression that appeared to be new to Gilbert. He told his host, Mr.
Williams, that he de