There was a prolonged gesticulatory altercation between the three black dolls in leather leggings and several of the white and the red dolls.  At last one of the mannikins in leggings shrugged his shoulders, made a definite gesture to the other two, and walked away towards the edge of the field nearest the stand.  It was the unprincipled referee; he had disallowed the foul.  In the protracted duel between the offending Manchester forward and the great, honest Jos Myatt he had given another point to the enemy.  As soon as the host realized the infamy it yelled once more in heightened fury.  It seemed to surge in masses against the thick iron railings that alone stood between the referee and death.  The discreet referee was approaching the grand stand as the least unsafe place.  In a second a handful of executioners had somehow got on to the grass.  And in the next second several policemen were in front of them, not striking nor striving to intimidate, but heavily pushing them into bounds.

“Get back there!” cried a few abrupt, commanding voices from the stand.

The referee stood with his hands in his pockets and his whistle in his mouth.  I think that in that moment of acutest suspense the whole of his earthly career must have flashed before him in a phantasmagoria.  And then the crisis was past.  The inherent gentlemanliness of the outraged host had triumphed and the referee was spared.

“Served him right if they’d man-handled him!” said a spectator.

“Ay!” said another, gloomily, “ay!  And th’ Football Association ‘ud ha’ fined us maybe a hundred quid and disqualified th’ ground for the rest o’ th’ season!”

“D——­n th’ Football Association!”

“Ay!  But you canna’!”

“Now, lads!  Play up, Knype!  Now, lads!  Give ’em hot hell!” Different voices heartily encouraged the home team as the ball was thrown into play.

The fouling Manchester forward immediately resumed possession of the ball.  Experience could not teach him.  He parted with the ball and got it again, twice.  The devil was in him and in the ball.  The devil was driving him towards Myatt.  They met.  And then came a sound quite new:  a cracking sound, somewhat like the snapping of a bough, but sharper, more decisive.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Stirling.  “That’s his bone!”

And instantly he was off down the staircase and I after him.  But he was not the first doctor on the field.  Nothing had been unforeseen in the wonderful organization of this enterprise.  A pigeon sped away and an official doctor and an official stretcher appeared, miraculously, simultaneously.  It was tremendous.  It inspired awe in me.

“He asked for it!” I heard a man say as I hesitated on the shore of the ocean of mud.