“Mr Buchanan in his—­” the doctor began to question.  “Oh!  There you are!”

The editor was standing in hat and muffler at the window, gazing out.  His age was about that of the doctor—­forty or so; and like the doctor he was rather stout and clean-shaven.  Their Scotch accents mingled in greeting, the doctor’s being the more marked.  Buchanan shook my hand with a certain courtliness, indicating that he was well accustomed to receive strangers.  As an expert in small talk, however, he shone no brighter than his visitors, and the three of us stood there by the window awkwardly in the heaped disorder of the room, while the other two men scratched and fidgeted with bits of paper at the soiled table.

Suddenly and savagely the old man turned on the boy: 

“What the hades are you waiting there for?”

“I thought there was something else, sir.”

“Sling your hook.”

Buchanan winked at Stirling and me as the boy slouched off and the old man blandly resumed his writing.

“Perhaps you’d like to look over the place?” Buchanan suggested politely to me.  “I’ll come with you.  It’s all I’m fit for to-day....  ’Flu!” He glanced at Stirling, and yawned.

“Ye ought to be in bed,” said Stirling.

“Yes.  I know.  I’ve known it for twelve years.  I shall go to bed as soon as I get a bit of time to myself.  Well, will you come?  The half-time results are beginning to come in.”

A telephone-bell rang impatiently.

“You might just see what that is, boss,” said the old man without looking up.

Buchanan went to the telephone and replied into it:  “Yes?  What?  Oh!  Myatt?  Yes, he’s playing....  Of course I’m sure!  Good-bye.”  He turned to the old man:  “It’s another of ’em wanting to know if Myatt is playing.  Birmingham, this time.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the old man, still writing.

“It’s because of the betting,” Buchanan glanced at me.  “The odds are on Knype now—­three to two.”

“If Myatt is playing Knype have got me to thank for it,” said the doctor, surprisingly.

“You?”

“Me!  He fetched me to his wife this morning.  She’s nearing her confinement.  False alarm.  I guaranteed him at least another twelve hours.”

“Oh!  So that’s it, is it?” Buchanan murmured.

Both the sub-editors raised their heads.

“That’s it,” said the doctor.

“Some people were saying he’d quarrelled with the trainer again and was shamming,” said Buchanan.  “But I didn’t believe that.  There’s no hanky-panky about Jos Myatt, anyhow.”

I learnt in answer to my questions that a great and terrible football match was at that moment in progress at Knype, a couple of miles away, between the Knype Club and the Manchester Rovers.  It was conveyed to me that the importance of this match was almost national, and that the entire district was practically holding its breath till the result should be known.  The half-time result was one goal each.