or minor must pass more. Football isn't the place for
extreme individualism.' 'Ammersham shapes well as half-back.' Things
like that."

"I could do that all right," said Shoesmith, brightening and manifestly
becoming pregnant with judgments.

"One great thing about a magazine of this sort," said Cossington, "is
to mention just as many names as you can in each number. It keeps the
interest alive. Chaps will turn it over looking for their own little
bit. Then it all lights up for them."

"Do you want any reports of matches?" Shoesmith broke from his
meditation.

"Rather. With comments."

"Naylor surpassed himself and negotiated the lemon safely home," said
Shoesmith.

"Shut it," said Naylor modestly.

"Exactly," said Cossington. "That gives us three features," touching
them off on his fingers, "Epigram, Literary Section, Sports. Then we
want a section to shove anything into, a joke, a notice of anything
that's going on. So on. Our Note Book."

"Oh, Hell!" said Britten, and clashed his boots, to the silent
disapproval of every one.

"Then we want an editorial."

"A WHAT?" cried Britten, with a note of real terror in his voice.

"Well, don't we? Unless we have our Note Book to begin on the front
page. It gives a scrappy effect to do that. We want something manly and
straightforward and a bit thoughtful, about Patriotism, say, or ESPRIT
DE CORPS, or After-Life."

I looked at Britten. Hitherto we had not considered Cossington mattered
very much in the world.

He went over us as a motor-car goes over a dog. There was a sort of
energy about him, a new sort of energy to us; we had never realised
that anything of the sort existed in the world. We were hopelessly at
a disadvantage. Almost instantly we had developed a clear and detailed
vision of a magazine made up of everything that was most acceptable
in the magazines that flourished in the adult world about us, and had
determined to make it a success. He had by a kind of instinct, as it
were, synthetically plagiarised every successful magazine and breathed
into this dusty mixture the breath of life. He was elected at his own
suggestion managing director, with the earnest support of Shoesmith and
Naylor, and conducted the magazine so successfully and brilliantly that
he even got a whole back page of advertisements from the big sports shop
in Holborn, and made the printers pay at the same rate for a notice
of certain books of their own which they said they had in