He played often, too, with a huge knife which he had for twenty-four
years. He took it abroad with him, took it to bed: Frances had to
retrieve it often from under his pillow in some hotel. Once at a
lecture in Dublin he drew it absent-mindedly to sharpen a pencil: as
it was seven and a half inches long shut, and fourteen open, the
amusement of the audience may be imagined. In origin it was, Father
O'Connor relates, a Texan or Mexican general utility implement. It
was with this knife that he won my daughter's heart many years later
when she, aged three, had not seen him for some time and had grown
shy of him. A little scared of his enormousness she stood far off. He
did not look in her direction but began to open and shut the vast
blade. Next she was on his knee. A little later we heard her remark,
"Uncle Gilbert, you make jokes just like my Daddy." And from him
came, "I do my best."

The prototype of Father Brown tells of the easy job in detection when
Gilbert had been reading a book:

He had just been reading a shilling pamphlet by Dr. Horton on the
Roman Menace or some such fearful wild fowl. I knew he had read it,
because no one else could when he had done. Most of his books, as and
when read, had gone through every indignity a book may suffer and
live. He turned it inside out, dog-eared it, pencilled it, sat on it,
took it to bed and rolled on it, and got up again and spilled tea on
it--if he were sufficiently interested. So Dr. Horton's pamphlet had
a refuted look when I saw it.

Father O'Connor was not the only friend who was added to the
Beaconsfield group with some frequency. It was easy enough to run
down from London or over from Welwyn (home of G.B.S.) or from Oxford
or Cambridge. It was most conveniently central. Gilbert's brethren of
the pen were especially apt to appear at all seasons and always found
friendly welcome. For he continued to call himself neither poet nor
philosopher but journalist. Father O'Connor had tried to persuade
him, as he neatly puts it, to "begin to print on handmade paper with
gilt edges." But Frances begged him to drop the idea: "You will not
change Gilbert, you will only fidget him. He is bent on being a jolly
journalist, to paint the town red, and he does not need style to do
that. All he wants is buckets and buckets of red paint."

Journalists coming down from London describe the "jolly" welcome,
beer poured, the sword-stick flourished, conversation f