which were all wrong technically. In a
really hostile debate it is better to be as strict as possible; but
as this is going to be a performance in which three Macs who are on
the friendliest terms in private will belabor each other recklessly
on wooden scalps and pillowed waistcoats and trouser seats, we need
not be particular.

Still, you had better know exactly what you are doing: hence this
wildly hurried scrawl.

Did you see my letter in Tuesday's _Times?_ Magnificent!

My love to Mrs. Chesterton, and my most distinguished consideration
to Winkle.* To hell with the Pope!

[* The Chestertons' dog who preceded Quoodle of the poem.]

Ever

G.B.S.

P.S. I told Sanders to explain to you that you would be entitled to
half the gate (or a third if Belloc shares) and that you were likely
to overlook this if you were not warned. I take it that you have
settled this somehow.

At the second of these debates Belloc opened the proceedings by
announcing to the audience "You are about to listen, I am about to
sneer." His only contribution to the debate was to recite a poem:

Our civilisation
Is built upon coal
Let us chant in rotation
Our civilisation
That lump of damnation
Without any soul
Our civilisation
Is built upon coal.

Bernard Shaw was on the friendliest terms with the others and admired
their genius but thought it ill directed. Belloc, he had told
Chesterton, was "wasting prodigious gifts" in the service of the Pope.

"I have not met G.K.C.: Shaw always calls him a man of colossal
genius" writes Lawrence of Arabia to a friend.

As a lecturer Chesterton's success was less certain than as a
debater. Many of his greatest admirers say they have heard him give
very poor lectures. He was often nervous and worried beforehand. "As
a lecture," wrote the _Yorkshire Weekly Post_ after a performance
in this year (1911), "it was a fiasco, but as an exhibition of
Chesterton it was pleasing." Although his writing appeared almost
effortless he did in fact take far more pains about it than he did in
preparing for a lecture. He seemed quite incapable of remembering the
time or place of appointment, or of getting there on time, if at all.
Stories are told of his non-appearance on various platforms. My
husband remembers a meeting in a London theatre at which Chesterton
had been billed as one of the speakers. The meeting, arranged by the
Knights of t