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