H.L. Mencken and G.K. Chesterton

I found this anecdote hilarious. :-)

Some time afterwards, G. K. Chesterton told me how his host in New York had written to [H.L.] Mencken, in the hope of bringing the two men together. Mencken had replied, "I am very sorry I cannot go to meet Chesterton. For I have long cherished an ambition to take him out and make him drunk, and then hand him over to the police while he was in that condition, to the shame of Holy Mother Church."

I told Mencken afterwards of Chesterton's comment: "Why, I could put Mencken under the table any day!" "Yes," said Mencken, "I suppose he could." [Source]

Of course,  I hasten to add that Chesterton in multiple places condemned drunkenness (as distinct from temperate drinking, which he praised). However, perhaps my favorite quote that includes such a denunciation of drunkenness (as an example in making a larger point) is this one.