“If Knype lose,” said Buchanan, explanatorily, “they’ll find themselves pushed out of the First League at the end of the season.  That’s a cert ... one of the oldest clubs in England!  Semi-finalists for the English Cup in ’78.”

“’79,” corrected the elder sub-editor.

I gathered that the crisis was grave.

“And Myatt’s the captain, I suppose?” said I.

“No.  But he’s the finest full-back in the League.”

I then had a vision of Myatt as a great man.  By an effort of the imagination I perceived that the equivalent of the fate of nations depended upon him.  I recollected, now, large yellow posters on the hoardings we had passed, with the names of Knype and of Manchester Rovers in letters a foot high and the legend “League match at Knype” over all.  It seemed to me that the heroic name of Jos Myatt, if truly he were the finest full-back in the League, if truly his presence or absence affected the betting as far off as Birmingham, ought also to have been on the posters, together with possibly his portrait.  I saw Jos Myatt as a matador, with a long ribbon of scarlet necktie down his breast, and embroidered trousers.

“Why,” said Buchanan, “if Knype drop into the Second Division they’ll never pay another dividend!  It’ll be all up with first-class football in the Five Towns!”

The interests involved seemed to grow more complicated.  And here I had been in the district nearly four hours without having guessed that the district was quivering in the tense excitement of gigantic issues!  And here was this Scotch doctor, at whose word the great Myatt would have declined to play, never saying a syllable about the affair, until a chance remark from Buchanan loosened his tongue.  But all doctors are strangely secretive.  Secretiveness is one of their chief private pleasures.

“Come and see the pigeons, eh?” said Buchanan.

“Pigeons?” I repeated.

“We give the results of over a hundred matches in our Football Edition,” said Buchanan, and added:  “not counting Rugby.”

As we left the room two boys dodged round us into it, bearing telegrams.

In a moment we were, in the most astonishing manner, on a leaden roof of the Signal offices.  High factory chimneys rose over the horizon of slates on every side, blowing thick smoke into the general murk of the afternoon sky, and crossing the western crimson with long pennons of black.  And out of the murk there came from afar a blue-and-white pigeon which circled largely several times over the offices of the Signal.  At length it descended, and I could hear the whirr of its strong wings.  The wings ceased to beat and the pigeon slanted downwards in a curve, its head lower than its wide tail.  Then the little head gradually rose and the tail fell; the curve had changed, the pace slackened; the pigeon was calculating with all its brain; eyes, wings, tail and feet were being co-ordinated to the resolution