his teeth, and plugged
on with bent head.

"He keeps the Foaming Quart up at Toft End," said the doctor. "It's the
highest pub in the Five Towns. He used to be what they call a
pot-hunter, a racing bicyclist, you know. But he's got past that and
he'll soon be past football. He's thirty-four if he's a day. That's one
reason why he's so independent--that and because he's almost the only
genuine native in the team."

"Why?" I asked. "Where do they come from, then?"

"Oh!" said Stirling as he gently started the car. "The club buys 'em, up
and down the country. Four of 'em are Scots. A few years ago an Oldham
club offered Knype L500 for Myatt, a big price--more than he's worth
now! But he wouldn't go, though they guaranteed to put him into a
first-class pub--a free house. He's never cost Knype anything except his
wages and the goodwill of the Foaming Quart."

"What are his wages?"

"Don't know exactly. Not much. The Football Association fix a maximum. I
daresay about four pounds a week _Hi there! Are you deaf_?"

"Thee mind what tha'rt about!" responded a stout loiterer in our path.
"Or I'll take thy ears home for my tea, mester."

Stirling laughed.

In a few minutes we had arrived at Hanbridge, splashing all the way
between two processions that crowded either footpath. And in the middle
of the road was a third procession of trams,--tram following tram, each
gorged with passengers, frothing at the step with passengers; not the
lackadaisical trams that I had seen earlier in the afternoon in Crown
Square; a different race of trams, eager and impetuous velocities. We
reached the _Signal_ offices. No crowd of urchins to salute us this
time!

Under the earth was the machine-room of the _Signal_. It reminded me of
the bowels of a ship, so full was it of machinery. One huge machine
clattered slowly, and a folded green thing dropped strangely on to a
little iron table in front of us. Buchanan opened it, and I saw that the
broken leg was in it at length, together with a statement that in the
_Signal's_ opinion the sympathy of every true sportsman would be with
the disabled player. I began to say something to Buchanan, when suddenly
I could not hear my own voice. The great machine, with another behind
us, was working at a fabulous speed and with a fabulous clatter. All
that my startled senses could clearly disentangle was that the blue
arc-lights above us blinked occasionally, and that folded green papers
were snowing down