, because I knew there was no chance unless I came before
Bloor, which of course I couldn't do. Now he's dead. If I could upset
old Barlow's apple-cart I should just be the youngest mayor by the skin
of my teeth. Huskinson, the mayor in 1884, was aged thirty-four and six
months. I've looked it all up this afternoon."

"How lovely if you _could_ be the youngest mayor!"

"Yes. I'll tell you how I feel. I feel as though I didn't want to be
mayor at all if I can't be the youngest mayor... you know."

She knew.

"Oh!" she cried, "do upset Mr Barlow's apple-cart. He's a horrid old
thing. Should I be the youngest mayoress?"

"Not by chalks," said he. "Huskinson's sister was only sixteen."

"But that's only playing at being mayoress!" Nellie protested. "Anyhow,
I do think you might be youngest mayor. Who settles it?"

"The Council, of course."

"Nobody likes Councillor Barlow."

"He'll be still less liked when he's wound up the Bursley Football
Club."

"Well, urge him on to wind it up, then. But I don't see what football
has got to do with being mayor."

She endeavoured to look like a serious politician.

"You are nothing but a cuckoo," Denry pleasantly informed her. "Football
has got to do with everything. And it's been a disastrous mistake in my
career that I've never taken any interest in football. Old Barlow wants
no urging on to wind up the Football Club. He's absolutely set on it.
He's lost too much over it. If I could stop him from winding it up, I
might...."

"What?"

"I dunno."

She perceived that his idea was yet vague.

II

Not very many days afterwards the walls of Bursley called attention, by
small blue and red posters (blue and red being the historic colours of
the Bursley Football Club), to a public meeting, which was to be held in
the Town Hall, under the presidency of the Mayor, to consider what steps
could be taken to secure the future of the Bursley Football Club.

There were two "great" football clubs in the Five Towns--Knype, one of
the oldest clubs in England, and Bursley. Both were in the League,
though Knype was in the first division while Bursley was only in the
second. Both were, in fact, limited companies, engaged as much in the
pursuit of dividends as in the practice of the one ancient and glorious
sport which appeals to the reason and the heart of England. (Neither
ever paid a dividend.) Both employed professionals, who, by a strange
chance, were nearly all born in Scotland