#monograph

One day some literary faker with more time to waste than I have may write a precious monograph about Doors. He will point out that Doors are both entrances and exits, and draw pseudo-philosophical conclusions about Life and Death. He will drag in the Door which American diplomats always insist on keeping Open, except when they are inside. He may turn aside to toy fancifully with the Door-consciousness of Wolves. He will almost inevitably mention some famous Doors; such as the Great Door of the cathedral of Poillissy-sur-Loire, on which Voltaire scribbled a rude epigram addressed to the Pope; the Golden Door of the temple of Pashka in Allahabad, on which are engraved 777 sacred cows; the Door of Cesare Borgia's guest house, which drove daggers into the backs of everyone who passed through it; and so forth. Probably he will unscrupulously invent all this part out of his own imagination, exactly as I have done, but no one will be any the wiser. It is difficult, however, to see how the Door of the Barnyard Club, in London, could find a place in such a catalogue, being made of gimcrack deal and having no history or peculiarities. And yet, when it opened in the small hours of a certain morning to let Simon Templar out into Bond Street, it was for that brief moment the Door of Adventure.