The students that evening were a songful crowd, and they had evolved in G. K. C.’s honour a parody of a well-known Salvation Army hymn that went, “I’m H-A-P-P-PY, I know I am, I’m sure I am, I’m H-A-P-P-Y!”
They had already several parodies on that spelling motif, such as “I’m D-R-U-N-K!”
That evening as G. K. C. entered, they all burst into, “I’m G. K. Chester—TON,” with terrific and increasing emphasis on the TON, later varying it “G. K.... Just-a TON.” The great man was delighted and bowed, smiled, and clapped his hands.
Of Chesterton in Liverpool Mr. Clarence Fry recalls, “I was living in Liverpool at the time Mr. Chesterton joined the Roman Catholic Church. Having been charmed with his writings, I went to see and hear him lecture. I remember how disappointed I was with his address (perhaps owing to Protestant prejudices). But I had reckoned without my host. The Chairman said all questions asked on paper would be answered by the Speaker. And then Mr. Chesterton rose and reading out each question, replied in a few pregnant words; immediately sitting down and beaming most angelically all round the hall on the audience, as much as to say, ‘How’s that! Beat that, if you can!’ And in no one case could any answer be ventured. I was delighted and overwhelmed with the sense of his masterly dealing with the issues laid before him. The replies were electric in their concise power. Also, as you may believe, I was charmed with his whole personality.”
The chairman was the late Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr. Keating, supported by the Catholic Bishop of Birmingham and other dignitaries. The occasion aroused great interest, as not long before G. K. C. had joined the Catholic Church. The meeting was arranged so that this new “Defender of the Faith” might help the cause of Catholicism in the city. The speech was largely devoted to an exposition of his newly-found faith.
“Chesterton seldom came to Glasgow,” records George Mortimer, “and the only time I heard him was on his first visit to the city one Sunday evening fully thirty years ago when he lectured in the Berkeley Hall which seats about six hundred people. His subject was ‘Some New Dangers of Oligarchies.’ In those days Sunday evening lectures were not popular in Scotland, and neither are they now. The churches are in most cases meagrely attended in the evening, the majority of people either going for a walk, visiting their friends or remaining at home and listening to the wireless.
“Evidently G. K. Chesterton, whom I had first seen referred to years previously as a new Carlyle, proved a powerful magnet, for instead of going to church I traveled from Paisley to Glasgow—seven miles by tramcar. All I remember about the meeting is that the hall was well filled; that a Scottish author, David Lowe, at present contributing reminiscences which he calls ‘Lowe Life’ to a Glasgow paper, was chairman; that Chesterton, then thirty years of age, was a large and fleshy man with a fine head of luxuriant brown hair; and that he made reference to the Boer War, to Lord Rosebery, and to Mr. Parks, a prominent lawyer, business man, Methodist and Liberal M. P., I have a general impression that he showed himself a democrat.”
“Chesterton was a past master of the art known popularly as ‘pulling your leg,’” according to Mr. William Platt. “With him, this was not merely a manifestation of his exuberant temperament; it was also a matter of principle, a determination to make the other man see that there are two sides to every question.
“I remember well his address to the British Humanitarian League. This body was of excellent principles, and supported by many and able and eminent persons; but it also contained many who had become rabid and fanatical, and so provided targets, for G. K. C.
“‘If’ he said ‘you ask me to extend my sympathy to the poor fox, pursued by savage sportsmen, shall I not also extend it to the poor sportsman, pursued by savage humanitarians?’