Shakespeare, but to a poet whom he called Grey. Which was another
cropper--or whopper. This strange and illiterate outbreak was printed by
the editor with the justly scornful title, "Mr. Chesterton 'Explains'?"
Any man reading the paper at breakfast saw at once the meaning of the
sarcastic quotation marks. They meant, of course, "Here is a man who
doesn't know Gray from Shakespeare; he tries to patch it up and he can't
even spell Gray. And that is what he calls an Explanation." That is the
perfectly natural inference of the reader from the letter, the mistake,
and the headline--as seen from the outside. The falsehood was serious;
the editorial rebuke was serious. The stern editor and the sombre,
baffled contributor confront each other as the curtain falls.

And now I will tell you exactly what really happened. It is honestly
rather amusing; it is a story of what journals and journalists really are.
A monstrously lazy man lives in South Bucks partly by writing a column
in the Saturday Daily News. At the time he usually writes it (which is
always at the last moment) his house is unexpectedly invaded by infants of
all shapes and sizes. His Secretary is called away; and he has to cope
with the invading pigmies. Playing with children is a glorious thing; but
the journalist in question has never understood why it was considered a
soothing or idyllic one. It reminds him, not of watering little budding
flowers, but of wrestling for hours with gigantic angels and devils.
Moral problems of the most monstrous complexity besiege him incessantly.
He has to decide before the awful eyes of innocence, whether, when a
sister has knocked down a brother's bricks, in revenge for the brother
having taken two sweets out of his turn, it is endurable that the brother
should retaliate by scribbling on the sister's picture book, and whether
such conduct does not justify the sister in blowing out the brother's
unlawfully lighted match.