the practice of football incompatible
with good citizenship? Was there anything dishonourable in playing
football? Ought professional footballers to be considered as social
pariahs? Was there any class of beings to whom the churches ought to be
closed?

The parson foundered in a storm of opprobrium, scorn, and ironic
laughter. Though the town laughed, it only laughed to hide its disgust
of the parson.

People began to wonder whether the teams would attend in costume,
carrying the football between them on a charger as a symbol. No such
multitudes ever greeted a mayoral procession in Bursley before. The
footballers, however, appeared in ordinary costume (many of them in
frock-coats); but they wore neckties of the club colours, a device which
was agreed to be in the nicest taste. St Luke's Church was crowded; and,
what is stranger, the churchyard was also crowded. The church barely
held the procession itself and the ladies who, by influence, had been
accommodated with seats in advance. Thousands of persons filled the
churchyard, and to prevent them from crushing into the packed fane and
bursting it at its weakest point, the apse, the doors had to be locked
and guarded. Four women swooned during the service: neither Mrs Machin,
senior, nor Nellie, was among the four. It was the first time that any
one had been known to swoon at a religious service held in November.
This fact alone gave a tremendous prestige to Denry's mayoralty. When,
with Nellie on his arm, he emerged from the church to the thunders of
the organ, the greeting which he received in the churchyard, though the
solemnity of the occasion forbade clapping, lacked naught in brilliance
and efficacy.

The real point and delight of that Corporation Sunday was not fully
appreciated till later. It had been expected that the collection after
the sermon would be much larger than usual, because the congregation was
much larger than usual. But the church-wardens were startled to find it
four times as large as usual. They were further startled to find only
three threepenny-bits among all the coins. This singularity led to
comment and to note-comparing. Everybody had noticed for weeks past a
growing dearth of threepenny-bits. Indeed, threepenny-bits had
practically vanished from circulation in the Five Towns. On the Monday
it became known that the clerks of the various branches of the Universal
Thrift Club, Limited, had paid into the banks enormous and unparalleled
quant