AUTOBIOGRAPHY-Chesterton

against the moonlight; and I committed my first and last crime; which was
burglary, and very enjoyable. The station, or that part of the station, seemed to
be entirely locked up; but I knew exactly the whereabouts of the waiting-room
in question; and I found the shortest cut to it was to climb up the steep grassy
embankment and crawl under the platform out upon the line; I then clambered
onto the platform and recovered the parasol. As I returned by the same route
(still in the battered top hat and the considerably deranged frock-coat) I stared
up at the sky and found myself filled with all sorts of strange sensations. I felt
as if I had just fallen from the moon, with the parasol for a parachute.
Anyhow, as I looked back up the tilt of turf grey in the moonshine, like
unearthly lunar grasses I did not share the lady’s impiety to the patroness of
lunatics.
It was fortunate, however, that our next most important meeting was not
under the sign of the moon but of the sun. She has often affirmed, during our
later acquaintance, that if the sun had not been shining to her complete
satisfaction on that day, the issue might have been quite different. It happened
in St. James’s Park; where they keep the ducks and the little bridge, which has
been mentioned in no less authoritative a work than Mr. Belloc’s Essay on
Bridges, since I find myself quoting that author once more. I think he deals in
some detail, in his best topographical manner, with various historic sites on the
Continent; but later relapses into a larger manner, somewhat thus: “The time
has now come to talk at large about Bridges. The longest bridge in the world is
the Forth Bridge, and the shortest bridge in the world is a plank over a ditch in
the village of Loudwater. The bridge that frightens you most is the Brooklyn
Bridge, and the bridge that frightens you least is the bridge in St. James’s
Park.” I admit that I crossed that bridge in undeserved safety; and perhaps I
was affected by my early romantic vision of the bridge leading to the
princess’s tower. But I can assure my friend the author that the bridge in St.
James’s Park can frighten you a good deal.
7.—THE CRIME OF ORTHODOXY
I used to say that my autobiography ought to consist of a series of short
stories like those about Sherlock Holmes; only that his were astonishing
examples of observation, and mine astonishing examples of lack of
observation. In short, they were to be “Adventures” concerned with my
absence of mind, instead of his presence of mind. One, I remember was called
“The Adventure of the Pro-Boer’s Corkscrew”, and commemorated the fact
that I once borrowed a corkscrew from Hammond and found myself trying to
open my front-door with it, with my latch-key in the other hand. Few will