conds we were in the car, and it had turned round,
and was speeding towards Knype. A feverish journey! We passed electric
cars every minute, and for three miles were continually twisting round
the tails of ponderous, creaking, and excessively deliberate carts that
dropped a trail of small coal, or huge barrels on wheels that dripped
something like the finest Devonshire cream, or brewer's drays that left
nothing behind them save a luscious odour of malt. It was a breathless
slither over unctuous black mud through a long winding canon of
brown-red houses and shops, with a glimpse here and there of a
grey-green park, a canal, or a football field.

'I daredn't hurry,' said Mr Colclough, setting us down at the station.
'I was afraid of a skid.' He had not spoken during the transit.

'Don't put on side, Ol,' said Mr Brindley. 'What time did you get up
this morning?'

'Eight o'clock, lad. I was at th' works at nine.'

He flew off to escape my thanks, and Mr Brindley and I went into the
station. Owing to the celerity of the automobile we had half-an-hour to
wait. We spent it chiefly at the bookstall. While we were there the
extra-special edition of the STAFFORDSHIRE SIGNAL, affectionately
termed 'the local rag' by its readers, arrived, and we watched a
newsboy affix its poster to a board. The poster ran thus--

HANBRIDGE RATES LIVELY MEETING

--

KNYPE F.C. NEW CENTRE--FORWARD

--

ALL--WINNERS AND S.P.

Now, close by this poster was the poster of the DAILY TELEGRAPH, and
among the items offered by the DAILY TELEGRAPH was: 'Death of Simon
Fuge'. I could not forbear pointing out to Mr Brindley the difference
between the two posters. A conversation ensued; and amid the rumbling
of trains and the rough stir of the platform we got back again to Simon
Fuge, and Mr Brindley's tone gradually grew, if not acrid, a little
impatient.

'After all,' he said, 'rates are rates, especially in Hanbridge. And
let me tell you that last season Knype Football Club jolly nearly got
thrown out of the First League. The constitution of the team for this
next season--why, damn it, it's a question of national importance! You
don't understand these things. If Knype Football Club was put into the
League Second Division, ten thousand homes would go into mourning. Who
the devil was Simon Fuge?'

They joke with such extraordinary seriousness in the Five Towns that
one is somehow bound to pretend that they are not