KATHLEEN

BY

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY


TO
THE REAL KATHLEEN
_With Apologies_




KATHLEEN



I


The Scorpions were to meet at eight o'clock and before that hour
Kenneth Forbes had to finish the first chapter of a serial story.
The literary society, named in accordance with the grotesque whim
of Oxford undergraduates, consisted of eight members, and it was
proposed that each one should contribute a chapter. Forbes was of
a fertile wit, and he had been nominated the first operator. He
had been allowed the whole Christmas vacation to prepare his
opening chapter; which was why on this first Sunday of term while
the rest of Merton College was at dinner in hall, he sat at his