“…to the end of his [G.K.C] days he hated to have his work read by anyone else when he was present, and to have it read aloud was torture for him.
[Once], when someone proposed to read aloud from [the Ballad of the White Horse] to a company of friends, its author seized the book, kicked it under an arm-chair, sat in the chair, and defied anyone to rescue his masterpiece.”
— E.C. Bentley
I was confused at just how this was suppose to be effective, but then remembered Chesterton weighed like 300 pounds