III

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.