Auld Lang Syne

One of the week's few really engaging news items, permitting escape from Watergate, involves Douglas Stewart McKelvy, a Yale man who liked his liquor, his fellow topers and his own boozy sense of humor. When he died on March 14 of a liver ailment, at age 41, he left a will that extended his benevolence, posthumously, to all three. Along with bequests to his two children, he donated $6,000 to each of two favorite East Side Manhattan bars "to defray the cost of liquid refreshments for their patrons until such sums shall be exhausted." A millionaire by inheritance ("He didn't do anything," says one drinking crony), McKelvy laid down no rules about how his money should be spent, whether on friends or strangers, regular customers or freeloaders. The manager at one bar, Gregory's Corner, has decided to start a guest book and to admit only the regulars to any party he throws with the gift. "That's a lot of booze, a lot of pouring," he says. "We don't want to throw open the doors. In a little place like this, the money could be forever."

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