Did Chesterton Believe in a Local Flood?

I don't really think so, no. He might get something wrong or rather be joking of the pre-Flood diet (Noah was hardly eating elephant soup before the flood), but he gets something really right about the scale of the Flood:

The cataract of the cliff of heaven fell blinding off the brink As if it would wash the stars away as suds go down a sink, The seven heavens came roaring down for the throats of hell to drink, And Noah he cocked his eye and said, "It looks like rain, I think, The water has drowned the Matterhorn as deep as a Mendip mine, But I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine."

This was middle stanza from a song called Wine and Water. It is from a novel called The Flying Inn. It was published in 1914, one hundred years ago. And a few more months:

THE FLYING INN
BY
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/The_Flying_Inn.txt

As the last stanza speaks of penance, I remind that it is today the day of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Our Lady of Seven Sorrows
15-IX-2014