That was odd. It was like a rather implausible boys' story with a weird mystical bit at the end. It has no female characters. G.K. Chesterton just doesn't do them. It was very London-centric. In those regards it was reminiscent to The Man Who Was Thursday. If you're an eleven-year-old boy, you might love it. If not, you might be left nonplussed. The book maybe has something to say about the dangers in inflaming nationalistic passions, or possibly it comments on the conflict between modernization versus long-standing community life. One explicit theme was the taking of serious matters jokingly and of jokes seriously.