It was his carefully-considered opinion that
in a contest with the second eleven of a village Church Lads' Brigade,
Houndsditch Wednesday might, with an effort (conceding them that slice
of luck which so often turns the tide of a game), scrape home. But when
it was a question of meeting a team like Manchester United--here Mr
Dodson, shrugging his shoulders despairingly, sank back in his chair,
and watchful secretaries brought him round with oxygen.
Throughout the whole country nothing but the approaching match was
discussed. Wherever civilization reigned, and in portions of Liverpool,
one question alone was on every lip: Who would win? Octogenarians
mumbled it. Infants lisped it. Tired City men, trampled under foot in
the rush for their tram, asked it of the ambulance attendants who
carried them to the hospital.
And then, one bright, clear morning, when the birds sang and all Nature
seemed fair and gay, Clarence Tresillian developed mumps.
London was in a ferment. I could have wished to go into details, to
describe in crisp, burning sentences the panic that swept like a
tornado through a million homes. A little encouragement, the slightest
softening of the editorial austerity and the thing would have been
done. But no. Brevity. That was the cry. Brevity. Let us on.
Houndsditch Wednesday met Manchester United at the Crystal Palace, and
for nearly two hours the sweat of agony trickled unceasingly down the
corrugated foreheads of the patriots in the stands.
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