ut the Club as an answer to the common
charge against St. Paul's School that it was aridly scholastic,
without spontaneous growth in culture or sentiment.

Then Fordham proposed "The Ladies." He was killing. Fordham is a
personality whom I think you do not know. He is one of the most
profoundly humourous men I ever knew, but his humour is more thickly
coated on him, so to speak, than Bentley or Oldershaw, i.e., it is
much more difficult to make him serious. He is one of the most
fascinating "typical Englishmen" I ever knew: strong, generous,
flippant on principle, rowdy by physical inspiration, successful,
popular, married--a man to discharge all the normal functions of life
well. But his most entertaining gift which he displayed truly
sumptuously on this occasion is a wonderful gift of burlesque and
stereotyped rhetoric. With melodramatic gestures he drew attention to
the torrents of the President's blood pouring "from the wound of the
tiny god." Amid sympathetic demonstration he protested against the
pathos of the toast, "the conquered on the field of battle toasting
the conquerors." As the only married member of the Club he ventured
to give us some advice on (A) Food, (B) Education, (C) Intercourse.
He sat down in a pure whirlwind of folly, without saying a word about
the feelings that were in all hearts, including his own, just then.
But I was delighted to find that marriage had not taken away an inch
of his incurable silliness.

Nothing could be a greater contrast than the few graceful and
dignified but very restrained words in which Bertram responded to
the toast. He is not a man who cares to make fun of women, however
genially.

Then came Langdon-Davies, whom I called upon to propose "The Club."
His was perhaps the most interesting case of all. When I knew
Langdon-Davies in the Junior Debating Club, he was one of the most
frivolous young men I ever knew. . . . But knowing that he was a good
speaker in a light style, and had been President of the Cambridge
Union, I put him down to propose the Club, thinking that we should
have enough serious speaking and would be well to err on the side of
entertainment.

Langdon-Davies got up and proceeded to deliver a speech that
made me jump. It was, I thought, the best speech of the evening:
but I am sure it was the most serious, the most sympathetic and a
lon