A True Chestertonian Paradox

In Masie Ward's biography, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, she quotes from an interview where G.K.C. shared the following:

A rather amusing thing was said by Father Knox on this point. He said that he should have regarded the book as entirely pantheist and as preaching that there was good in everything if it had not been for the introduction of the one real anarchist and pessimist. But he was prepared to wager that if [The Man Who Was Thursday] survives for a hundred years - which it won't - they will say that the real anarchist was put in afterwards by the priests. [Emphasis added.]

What I find ironic is that I came across this quotation is my research as I prepare to attend the American Chesterton Society's Conference on The Man Who Was Thursday on the occasion of its hundredth anniversary of publication. Chesterton is famous for his self-deprecating humility... I wonder what he thinks of this Conference now?