d the
only democratic institution of its kind left in England. Every other
chapter the new innkeepers run into Ivywood and his hangers-on. As the
story wriggles its inconsequent length, the author curses through the
mouths of his heroes. He anathematizes teetotallers, brewers,
vegetarians, temperance drinks, model villages, aesthetic poets, Oriental
art, Parliament, politicians, Jews, Turks, and infidels in general,
futurist painting, and other things. In the end, Dalroy and Pump lead a
vast insurrection, and thousands of dumb, long-suffering Englishmen
attack Ivywood in his Hall, and so free their country from the Turk.

Only the songs already described in Chapter V preserve this book from
extreme dullness. Technically it is poor. The action is as scattered as
the parts of a futurist picture. A whole chapter is devoted to a picture
of a newspaper editor at work, inventing the phraseology of
indefiniteness. Epigrams are few and are very much overworked. Once a
catchword is sprung, it is run to death. The Turk who by means of silly
puns attempts to prove that Islamic civilization is better than
European, never ceases in his efforts. The heartlessness of Ivywood is
continuous, and ends in insanity.

Parts of _The Flying Inn_ convey the impression that Chesterton was
tired of his own style and his own manner of controversy, and had taken
to parodying himself. The arguments of the already-mentioned Turk, for
example, might well pass for a really good parody of the theological
dispute in the first chapter of _The Ball and the Cross_. There, it may
be remembered, two men (more or less) discussed the symbolism of balls
and crosses. In _The Flying Inn_ people discuss the symbolism of
crescents and crosses, and the Turk, Misysra Ammon, explains, "When the
English see an English youth, they cry out 'He is crescent!' But when
they see an English aged man, they cry out 'He is cross!'" On these
lines a great deal of _The Flying Inn_ is written.

We now come to Chesterton's political decadence, traceable, like many
features in his history, to Mr. Hilaire Belloc. The friendship between
G.K.C. and the ex-Liberal M.P. for Rochdale bore a number of interesting
fruits. There were the amusing illustrations to The Great Enquiry, an
amusing skit on the Tariff Reform League, to Emmanuel Burden and The
Green Overcoat. But curious artificialities sprang into existence, like
so many funguses, under the lengthening shadow of Mr. Belloc. To him