73 / 252
Faculty and Proctors
But they could not save Killackey. Only his doughty
spirit went on to France. He died on the way across.
*
*
*
*
Killackey's successor, as High Priest of this Temple
of Bacchus, or principal of this branch of the American
School of Drinking, was Phil Kennedy, also of Gaelic
origin, and proud of it. He had been Killackey's lieu–
tenant, or aide, and had done most of the hiring for the
Bar from its early days. The proudest day of Kennedy's
life,
his friends used to say, 'fas that on which he him–
self composed for Ireland's most publicized poet of the
time, and served with his own hands, a drink that made
such a hit with thirsty literature that the poet would
drink nothing else.
William Butler Yeats had come over to New York
with the Irish Players during one of the early years of
the present century, and certain New York
literati,
eager
to do him honor, gave him a luncheon in ' the Men's
Cafe of the hotel, across the hall from the place where
Kennedy presided. Phil had advance word and was
thrilled. Naturally, cocktails were ordered, and Ken–
nedy decided that no other.hands must J:ouch this offer–
ing. The cocktails must be something different. Yeats
must have heard the word "cocktail,"
Ph~I
realized, but
there were things about drink that most Irishmen who
had never before seen New York did not know. The
Clover Club Cocktail, not so long before imported from
Philadelphia, was then regarded as the last word in ap–
petizers. It had not yet crossed the Atlantic. So Kennedy
with his own hands shook up a trayful of Clover Clubs
and, brushing aside the waiters who sought to render
[ 73]