The Action of the Play takes place in a Lancashire town on the last Saturday in April between the hours of one and five in the afternoon.

Austin Whitworth's house in Blackton was built by his father in 1870 and the library is a stately room. The door is on the right. Centre is a deep bay with a mullioned window and padded window seat. A brisk fire burns in the elaborate fireplace, with its high club fender. Shelves line the walls. All the furniture dates from the original period of the house, and though the chairs may have been upholstered in the meantime, they would repay fresh attention. Solidity is the keynote of the roomy but its light wood and bright rugs save it from heaviness.

The time is one o'clock on the last Saturday in April. A painting of old John Whitworth is over the fireplace.

In the armchair is Edmund Whitworth, a prosperous London solicitor. A bachelor, his habit of dining well has marked his waist-line. Pompous geniality is his manner. In his hand is a sheet of notepaper which, as the curtain rises, he finishes reading. Sitting facing him on the fender is Leo Whitworth, his nephew. Leo is twenty-one and dresses with fastidious taste, beautifully and unobtrusively. He is small. Just now he awaits Edmund's verdict with anxiety. Edmund removes his pince-nez and hands the paper to Leo.

---

EDMUND. I like it, Leo.

LEO. Really, uncle? I asked you to be candid.

EDMUND. Yes. I do like It. It's immature, but it's the real thing. (Rising and patting his shoulder patronizingly.) There's stuff in you, my boy.

LEO. You're the first Whitworth who's ever praised my work. The usual thing's to laugh at me for trying to be a poet.

EDMUND. A prophet in his own country, eh? Perhaps they don't know very much about poetry, Leo.

LEO. (excitedly, walking about, while Edmund takes his place by the fire). Is that any reason for laughing at me? I don't know anything about hockey, but I don't laugh at Flo and Elsie for playing. As I tell them, mutual tolerance is the only basis for family life. If I were a large-limbed athlete they'd bow down and worship, but as I've got a sense of beauty and no brawn they simply bully the life out of me.

EDMUND. You're sure you do tolerate them?

LEO. Of course I do. I'd rather have a sister who's a football maniac any day than a sister who's a politician. There's some beauty in catching balls, but there's no beauty in catching votes. What I complain of is that there's no seriousness in this house about the things that matter.

EDMUND. Such as—poetry?

LEO. Oh, now you're getting at me. All right. I'm used to it. Being serious about poetry's better than being serious about football, anyhow.

EDMUND. Sonnets have their place in the scheme of things.

LEO. A high place, too.

EDMUND. I agree with you in putting them above football.

LEO. Then you'll find yourself unpopular here,

EDMUND. At the same time, it's possible to overdo the sonnets, Leo.

LEO. Never. Art demands all.

EDMUND. My dear boy, if you're going to talk about art and temperament, and all the other catchwords——

LEO. I'm not. I'm only asking you to tell them you believe in my genius and then they'll drop thinking I'm making an ass of myself.

EDMUND. I see. By the way, what are you making of yourself, Leo?

LEO. A poet, I hope.

EDMUND. I meant for a living.

LEO. I have a weak lung.

EDMUND. Is that your occupation?

LEO. It is my tragedy.

EDMUND. Um.

LEO. You will speak to them for me, uncle? They'll listen to you. At least you come from London, where people are civilized.

EDMUND. Are they? In London I hold a brief for the culture of the provinces.

LEO. You took jolly good care to get away from the provinces, yourself. And you mustn't tell me you think Blackton is cultured.

EDMUND. I heard my first Max Reger sonata in Blackton long before London had found him.

LEO. Music's another matter.

EDMUND. Yes. Your father played it to me.

LEO. Well, there you are again. Music and football are the only things he cares about. That's just what I complain of. I've tried to raise his tastes, but I find generally a lack of seriousness in men of his age. Of course' there are exceptions.

EDMUND. Thank you.

(Enter Florence Whitworth, in golfing tweeds with bag, and without hat, hair tumbled by the wind. She is a largemade girl of eighteen, supremely healthy and athletic.)

FLORENCE. May I hide in here?

LEO. What's there to hide from?

FLORENCE. Eleanor Smith is tackling Elsie in the hall to play hockey for the High School Old Girls this afternoon. When she finds Elsie won't, she'll want to try me, so I'll keep out of the way, please.

EDMUND. And why won't Elsie?

FLORENCE. We never do when the Rovers are playing at home. I wouldn't miss seeing the match this afternoon for the best game of hockey I ever had. (Slinging the golf-bag in a corner.) Topping round on the links, uncle. You ought to have come.

EDMUND. I'm a sedentary animal, Flo.

FLORENCE. Yes. And you're putting on weight. It's six years since you were here, and I'll bet you've gone up a stone a year.

EDMUND. In my profession a portly figure is an asset. If you have a lean and hungry look, clients think it's because you sit up late running up bills of costs. If you look comfortable, they imagine you're too busy dining to think of the six and eightpences.

FLORENCE. Yes. I never met a slacker yet who wasn't full of excellent excuses. Leo calls his poetry. You call yours business. Wait till you'll retire. You'll find it out then if you haven't a decent hobby.

EDMUND. But I have.

FLORENCE. It's invisible to the naked eye. You don't golf, and you don't play tennis or cricket or——

EDMUND. I collect postage stamps.

FLORENCE. No wonder you're in bad condition with a secret vice like that. (Goes to open window.)

LEO (sharply). Don't do that.

FLORENCE. It's blazing hot. I can't imagine what you want a fire for.

LEO. Uncle felt chilly.

FLORENCE. Sorry I spoke. No, I'm not. It serves him right for taking no exercise.

(Enter Elsie Whitworth, who, like Florence, is tall and muscular, but with a slim beauty which, contrasted with Florence's loose limbs and occasional gawkishness, is, at twenty-two, comparatively mature. Her indoor dress, to honour the visiting uncle, is elaborate and bright.)

ELSIE. Flo, Eleanor Smith wants you.

FLORENCE. I know she does. That's why I'm hiding in here.

ELSIE. They're a man short on the team, and——

FLORENCE. Didn't you tell her I can't play to-day? Elsie. She thinks she can persuade you.

FLORENCE. She can't.

ELSIE. You'd better go and tell her so.

FLORENCE (gathering up her golf-bag). Blow Eleanor Smith! She thinks hockey's everything. I hate fanatics. Elsie. She's waiting for you.

FLORENCE. All right. I'll go. (Exit Florence.)

ELSIE. Heard the news, Leo?

LEO. Not particularly.

ELSIE (excitedly). Jack Metherell's coming in to see father before the match. Father told me.

LEO. Oh? My pulse remains normal.

ELSIE. You've no more blood in you than a cauliflower. I'm tingling all over at the thought of being under the same roof with Metherell.

EDMUND. May I enquire who Mr. Metherell is?

ELSIE. Do you mean to say you've never heard of Metherell?

EDMUND. I apologise for being a Londoner.

ELSIE. That's no excuse. They can raise a decent crowd at Chelsea nowadays.

EDMUND. Indeed? I live at Sevenoaks.

ELSIE. You must have heard of Metherell.

EDMUND. No. Who is he?

LEO. Metherell is a professional footballer, uncle.

EDMUND. Oh!

ELSIE (indignantly). A professional footballer! He's the finest centre forward in England.

EDMUND (politely). Really? Quite a great man.

LEO. Quite. He's the idol of my sisters and the Black-ton roughs. For two hours every Saturday and Bank Holiday through eight months of the year forty thousand pairs of eyes are glued on Metherell and the newspapers of Saturday night, Sunday and Monday chronicle his exploits in about two columns; but if you don't know what "agitating the spheroid towards the sticks" means, you'd better not try to read them.

(Elsie approaches him threateningly.)

He is also good looking and a decent fellow.

ELSIE. You'd better add that.

LEO. I will add more. He spends the rest of his time training for those two hours, and when he's thirty he'll retire and keep a pub; and in three years eighteen stone of solid flesh will bury the glory that was Metherell.

ELSIE (threatening him). You viperous little skunk.

LEO. I appeal to you, uncle. Can a skunk possess the attributes of a viper?

ELSIE. If you say another word against Jack Metherell, I'll knock you into the middle of next week. You're frightened of the sight of a football yourself and you dare to libel a man who——

LEO. The greater the truth the greater the libel. You're a solicitor, uncle. Isn't that so?

EDMUND. Do you want my professional opinion?

LEO (dodging round the table from Elsie). I want your personal protection.

ELSIE (giving Leo up). Uncle, Jack Metherell's the truest sportsman who ever stepped on to a football field. He's the straightest shooter and the trickiest dribbler in the game. I'd walk barefooted over thorns to watch him play, and for Leo to say he'll retire at thirty and grow fat is nothing but a spiteful idiotic lie.

EDMUND (making peace) Well, suppose we say he'll retire at thirty-five and just put on a little flesh and live to a ripe old age, fighting his battles over again.

LEO. Over a gallon of beer in the saloon bar.

ELSIE. If your head wasn't too full of poetry for anything important, you'd know Jack's a teetotaller. He's never entered a public house and he never will.

EDMUND. If I were you, Leo, I wouldn't quarrel. I should make a poem about it.

ELSIE. It's all he's fit for. Lampooning a great man. I tell you, uncle, Jack Metherell can do what he likes in Blackton. If he cared to put up for Parliament, no other man would make a show.

LEO. Oh, the fellow's popular. They all love Jack.

ELSIE. Popular. There isn't a woman in the town but would sell her soul to marry him.

EDMUND. This seems to be the old Pagan worship of the body.

LEO. The mob must have a hero. Prize-fighting's illegal and cricket's slow, so it's the footballer's turn to-day to be an idol.

ELSIE. Look here, you can judge for yourself this afternoon.

LEO. Are you coming to the match, uncle?

EDMUND. Yes. I'm curious to see it. I suppose you're not going?

LEO. Oh, I shall go.

EDMUND. Really? I had gathered that you don't like football.

LEO. I don't like funerals or weddings either, but they're all the sort of family function one goes to as a duty.

ELSIE. A duty. Will you believe me, he never misses a match, uncle?

LEO. If you want to know, I go for professional reasons.

EDMUND. Professional?

LEO. I am training myself to be a close observer of my fellow men, and in a football crowd I can study human passions in the raw. To the earnest student of psychology the interest is enormous.

ELSIE. Yes. You wait for his psychological shout when Blackton score a goal. You'll know then if his lungs are weak. We go because we like it and so does he, only we're not ashamed of our tastes and he is. Wait till Jack Metherel comes on the field this afternoon in the old red and gold of the Blackton Rovers and——

(Austin Whitworth enters while she speaks and interrupts her. Without being grossly fat, Austin is better covered than Edmund, whose elder brother he is. Without exaggeration, his lounge suit suggests sporting tendencies. His manner is less confident than that of Edmund, the successful carver-out of a career, and at times curiously deferential to his brother. Obviously a nice fellow and, not so obviously, in some difficulty. With his children he is on friendly chaffing terms, so habitually getting the worst of the chaff that he is in danger of becoming a nonentity in his own house. He wears a moustache, which, like his remaining hair, is grey. Florence follows him.).

AUSTIN. But Metherell won't.

ELSIE. What. Has Jack hurt himself at practice? Austin. No.

LEO. What's up with him?

AUSTIN. Nothing.

ELSIE. Then why isn't he playing?

AUSTIN. He is playing.

ELSIE. You just said——

AUSTIN. He won't wear the Blackton colours. He's playing for Birchester. He's transferred.

ELSIE. You've transferred Jack Metherell! Father, you're joking.

AUSTIN. No.

ELSIE (tensely). I'll never forgive you. He's the only man on the team who's Blackton born and bred. The rest are all foreigners.

FLORENCE. Who've you got to put in his place? There isn't another centre forward amongst them.

AUSTIN. There's Angus.

FLORENCE. Angus! He can't sprint for toffee, and his shooting's the limit.

AUSTIN. Well, you've to make the best you can of Angus. Metherell belongs to Birchester now.

ELSIE. I don't know what you're thinking about, father. Are you mad? What did you do it for?

AUSTIN. Money, my dear, which the Club needs badly.

ELSIE. It'll need it worse if we lose to-day and drop to the second division.

AUSTIN. We must not lose to-day.

FLORENCE. You're asking for it. Transferring Metherell. The rest are a pack of rotters.

AUSTIN. They've got to fight for their lives to-day. Birchester offered a record fee on condition I fixed at once. I was there last night with Metherell and he signed on for them.

FLORENCE. It's a howling shame.

LEO. And over Blackton Rovers was written Ichabod, their glory is departed.

ELSIE. Father, do you mind if I go? I might say some of the things I'm thinking if I stayed.

FLORENCE. I'll come too. I wish to goodness I was playing hockey. It won't be fun to see Jack Metherell play against us.

(Florence at door,)

AUSTIN. It wasn't for fun that I transferred him.

ELSIE. No. Worse. For money. You've told us that and—oh, I'd better go.

(Exeunt Flo and Elsie.)

AUSTIN. Go with them, Leo.

LEO. Shall I?

AUSTIN. Please.

(Exit Leo.)

Well, Edmund?

EDMUND (puzzled). Well, Austin?

AUSTIN. Now you can judge exactly how pressing my necessities are. You've heard it all.

EDMUND. Really? You've only talked football.

AUSTIN. Football is all. I'm sorry I got in last night too late to have a chat with you, but (shuddering) what I was doing yesterday is public property this morning.

EDMUND. You mean about the man Metherell?

AUSTIN. Yes.

EDMUND. I understand some other club has bought him from you. Are footballers for sale?

AUSTIN. Er—in a sense.

EDMUND. And why have you sold him if he's a valuable man?

AUSTIN. He's invaluable. If ever there was a one-man team, that team is ours. I've seen the others stand around and watch Metherell win matches by himself. But to-day money is more essential than the man.

EDMUND. I'm still puzzled. Is football a business then?

AUSTIN. Of course. That's the worst of burying yourself in London. You never know anything. Football clubs to-day are limited companies.

EDMUND. I fancy I had heard that.

AUSTIN. Well, broadly speaking, and not so broadly either, I am the limited company that runs Blackton Rovers. You never cared for sport. I was always keen. In the old amateur days, I played for Blackton while you went country walks and studied law. Football's always meant a lot to me. It means life or death to-day.

EDMUND. That's a strong way of talking about a game, Austin.

AUSTIN. Life or death, Edmund. Blackton's been my passion. It's not a town that's full of rich men, and the others buttoned up their pockets. Employers of labour too, who know as well as I do that football is an antidote to strikes, besides keeping the men in better condition by giving them somewhere to go instead of pubs. I've poured money out like water, but the spring's run dry and other Clubs are richer. They can buy better players. They bought them from me.

EDMUND. Have the men no choice?

AUSTIN. Up to a point. But footballers aren't sentimentalists and rats desert a sinking ship. The one man who stuck to me was Metherell. He's a Blackton lad, and he liked to play for his native town. To-day, he's gone. I made him go for the money I needed. The Club's been losing matches. We were knocked out of the Cup Tie in the first round. Lose to-day and Blackton Rovers go down to the second division. My Club in the second division!

EDMUND. Does that matter so much—apart from sentimental reasons?

AUSTIN. It matters this much. That there'll never be another dividend. The gate money for the second division game's no use to me.

EDMUND. But surely, if your public's got the football habit they'll go on coming.

AUSTIN. Not to a second division team. They'll drink a pint or two less during the week and travel on Saturdays to the nearest first division match.

EDMUND. So much for their loyalty.

AUSTIN. They don't want loyalty. They want first class football, and if I can't give it them, they'll go where they can get it. As it is, the Club's on the brink of bankruptcy, and I'm the Club.

EDMUND. Then your men had better win to-day.

AUSTIN. They must.

EDMUND. And if—supposing they don't?

AUSTIN. That's why I brought you here. To look into things. I can't face ruin myself.

EDMUND. Ruin? It's as bad as that?

AUSTIN. Oh, I daresay you're thinking me a fool.

EDMUND. I think your sense of proportion went astray.

AUSTIN. All my money's in it. I don't care for myself. I had value for it all the day four years ago when Blackton won the Cup at the Crystal Palace, but it's been a steady decline ever since. What troubles me is, it's so rough on the children.

EDMUND. Have you told them?

AUSTIN. What's the use? Leo's got no head for business and the girls are—girls.

EDMUND. Yes. Tell me, what are you doing with Leo?

AUSTIN. Doing? Well, Leo's is a decorative personality, and he has a lung, poor lad. Leo's not made for wear.

EDMUND. Rubbish! If he's made you feel that, he's a clever scamp, with a taste for laziness and a gift for deception.

AUSTIN. Well, I do feel about Leo like a barndoor fowl that has hatched out a peacock.

EDMUND. Peacock! Yes, for vanity. A little work would do the feathers no harm.

AUSTIN. I can't be hard on a boy with his trouble.

EDMUND. I foresee a full week-end, Austin. And I thought I was coming down for a quiet time in the bosom of my family.

AUSTIN. Yes, we've been great family men, Edmund, you and I.

EDMUND (hastily). Well, we won't go into that again.

AUSTIN. Yes, we will. We quarrelled over Debussy. Come into the music-room and I'll play the thing over to you now. If you don't admit it's great, I'll——

EDMUND. We've other matters to discuss, Austin. This isn't the time for music.

AUSTIN. Yes, it is. Music makes me forget. Some men take to drink. I go to the piano.

(Enter Florence and Elsie.)

ELSIE. Father, do you want any lunch?

AUSTIN (looking at watch). By Jove, yes. Time's getting on. I'll play that Debussy thing afterwards, Edmund. Coming, girls?

ELSIE. No, thank you, father. Neither Flo nor I feel we can sit down to table with you just yet. We've had ours.

AUSTIN. You've been quick about it. Where's Leo?

FLORENCE. Stuffing himself with cold beef. Men have no feelings.

EDMUND. Surely Leo must have a feeling of hunger.

ELSIE. It's indecent to be hungry after hearing of father's treachery to Blackton.

AUSTIN. Treachery!

FLORENCE. Some of my tears fell in the salad bowl, and I hope they'll poison you.

EDMUND. Be careful what you're saying, Florence. Is that the way to talk to your father?

FLORENCE. No. That's nothing to the way I ought to talk to him.

EDMUND. Well, I know if I'd addressed my father like that——

FLORENCE. It's a long time since you had a father to address, Uncle Edmund. We bring our fathers up differently to-day.

EDMUND. If you only knew what your father——

AUSTIN (taking his arm). It doesn't matter, Edmund. Come to lunch.

(Exeunt Edmund and Austin.)

FLORENCE. Yes, it doesn't matter if the Rovers are defeated, but there's beef and beer in the next room and the heavens would fall if food were neglected.

ELSIE. Oh, I don't care if they are beaten. The Rovers don't interest me without Metherell.

FLORENCE. I don't believe they ever did. You're no true sportswoman, Elsie. You always thought more about the man than the game. You might be in love with Metherell.

ELSIE. Yes, I might.

FLORENCE. Perhaps you are.

ELSIE. Is there a woman in Blackton who doesn't admire him?

FLORENCE. Oh, I admire him. But that's not loving.

ELSIE. No. That isn't loving.

FLORENCE. You sound jolly serious about it.

ELSIE. Do you realize that now he's transferred he'll have to live in Birchester—two hundred miles away?

FLORENCE. Yes, I suppose so.

ELSIE. What are our chances of seeing him?

FLORENCE. Once a year or so when Birchester play here, instead of about every alternate Saturday.

ELSIE. I've been seeing him oftener than that.

FLORENCE. Do you mean you've been meeting him?

ELSIE (breaking down on Flo's shoulder, to her great embarrassment). Flo, I do love him and I don't care who knows it, and now he'll have to leave Blackton, and I——

FLORENCE. Steady, old girl. I'm a bit out of my depth myself, but I'll do my best for you with father.

ELSIE (braced up). Father wouldn't stop me.

FLORENCE. He might try. Jack isn't quite our class, in a general way of speaking, is he?

ELSIE. Class! What is our class? We're nobodies.

FLORENCE. Still, as things go in Blackton we're rather upper crust, wouldn't you say?

ELSIE. Grandfather began life as a mechanic's labourer.

FLORENCE. Did he? I've never worried about our pedigree, but you wouldn't think it to look at him. (Looking at his portrait.)

ELSIE. Oh, he made money. One of the good old grinding, saving sort. But he began a good deal lower down than Jack. Jack's father was an undertaker.

FLORENCE. An undertaker!

ELSIE (hotly). Well, I suppose undertakers can have children like other people.

FLORENCE. Oh, I've no objections

ELSIE. I've no objections either.

FLORENCE. I daresay not—to the father. He's dead. But the mother isn't.

ELSIE. What's the matter with his mother?

FLORENCE. Haven't you seen her?

ELSIE. Jack's shirked introducing me, if you want to know.

FLORENCE. Well, I have seen her, and——

ELSIE. Well?

FLORENCE. She's a hard nut to crack.

ELSIE. I'll crack her if she needs it. If I want to marry a man, I marry him. I don't mind telling parents about it, but I don't ask their permission. That sort of thing went out about the time motor cars came in.

FLORENCE. Then why haven't you told father before this?

ELSIE. Because Jack's old-fashioned and thinks he ought to speak to father first. He's got a perfectly ridiculous respect for father.

FLORENCE. Father's his employer. We don't think much of father, but I expect there are people who regard him as quite a big man.

ELSIE. That needn't have made Jack a coward. As father's ceased to employ him perhaps he'll get his out-of-date interview over now. (She runs suddenly to window.)

FLORENCE. What's the matter?

ELSIE. I'm sure I heard a ring.

FLORENCE. You've got sharp ears. Do you mean to tell me that in this room you can hear a bell in the kitchen?

ELSIE (opening window). It might be Jack.

FLORENCE (following her). Don't you know whether it is?

ELSIE. I can't see any one.

FLORENCE. But I thought people in your case didn't need to see. Don't you feel his unseen presence in your bones like you feel a thunderstorm?

(They are both in the window bay. Barnes, the butler, shows in Jack Metherell. Jack is dark and handsome with traces of coarseness, tall and of strong appearance, clean-shaven, dressed rather cheaply hut not vulgarly. A modest fellow, unspoiled by popular acclaim and simple-minded though successful. He remains near the door, not seeing the girls. Florence restrains Elsie.)

BARNES. I will let Mr. Whitworth know you are here. Jack. Thank you.

(Barnes half closes door, then returns.)

BARNES. Mr. Metherell, I was thinking of having a little money on the team this afternoon. Can I take it from you that it's safe?

JACK. It depends which team you put it on.

BARNES. Why, the Rovers, of course.

JACK. Do you want to win your bet?

BARNES. I do that.

JACK. Then put it on Birchester.

BARNES. Really, Mr. Metherell?

JACK. Really.

(Barnes pauses, then.)

BARNES. I will inform Mr. Whitworth that you are here.

(Exit Barnes. Jack watches him close door, then goes to bookcase, examines books, takes one out and begins to read studiously. Florence motions Elsie to remain and comes forward.)

FLORENCE. Good-morning, Mr. Metherell.

JACK (closing book quietly). Good morning, Miss Florence. Florence. Are you much of a reader?

JACK. I'm striving to improve my mind.

FLORENCE (taking the book). Good gracious, you've got hold of Plato.

JACK. Yes. I have read him in the Everyman Edition, but I see this is a different translation by a Mr. Jowett.

FLORENCE. How learned you must be.

JACK. Not I, more's the pity. We've two members in the Mutual Improvement League at our Sunday School who can read Plato in the original. I wish I could.

FLORENCE. Do you? I'll put it back (replacing book). You'll have no use for Plato in a minute.

JACK. Why not, Miss Florence?

(Florence laughs and exit, leaving him looking after her. Elsie comes forward and puls her hands over his eyes.)

JACK. It's Elsie.

ELSIE. Yes. It's Elsie. (Facing him.) Aren't you going to kiss me, Jack?

JACK. In your father's house?

ELSIE. It's as good as any other place.

JACK. No, it isn't. Not till I have asked his leave.

ELSIE. You've kissed me in the fields.

JACK. I know. I've compromised with my conscience.

ELSIE. Jack, if the rest of you was as antiquated as your conscience, you'd be a doddering octogenarian instead of the liveliest player in the League. Have you come now to ask father's leave?

JACK. I've come because he told me to last night. I might ask his leave though, now. But I think I ought to ask my mother first.

ELSIE. They'd better both be told at once. If you're going to Birchester, I'm coming with you.

JACK. You've heard that then?

ELSIE. Yes. Did you hear what I said?

JACK. About coming with me?

ELSIE. Yes.

JACK. I'm willing if they are.

ELSIE. Who are "they"?

JACK. Your father, and my mother. Suppose the banns go up next Sunday, we could get married in a month and make one bite of the wedding and the testimonial do they'll want to give me.

ELSIE. I couldn't be ready in a month, Jack.

JACK. Well, I'm ready any time.

(She kisses him.)

Oh, now Elsie, that's a foul. You know——

ELSIE. You didn't kiss me. I kissed you. I do what I like in this house.

JACK. It's a big house, lass. You'll find less breathing space in my seven-and-six a week house in a row, with my mother in it, and all.

ELSIE (pulling him to the arm-chair and sitting herself on its arm). I've thought it all out, Jack. It won't be a house in a row. There are moors round Birchester, and we're going to live outside the town in a dinky little cottage where the air will always keep you at the top of your form, and I shall have a garden to look after and be handy for the links. I'm going to teach you golf. I shall drop hockey when I'm married. Married life demands sacrifices.

JACK. Yes. You're going to sacrifice a lot.

ELSIE. You're not going to begin all that over again, are you? Do you want to marry me?

JACK. Like nothing on earth.

ELSIE. Then I get you and nothing that I lose counts against that gain.

JACK. You've a fine sweet way of putting things. I just go funny-like all over and the words won't come. But I love you, lass, I love you. I'll be a good husband to you.

ELSIE. It's heaven to hear you say you love me. I want no sweeter words to come than those, I don't deserve it, Jack. Who am I? Elsie Whitworth. Nothing. And you're the grandest, strongest player of your time.

JACK (rising). You think too much of football, Elsie.

ELSIE. That's impossible.

JACK. You do. Football's as good a way as another of earning a week's wages, but that's all it is.

ELSIE. It's the thing you do supremely well.

JACK. Yes. Now and for a few more years maybe, but I'll be an old man for football soon.

ELSIE. That's why I mean to teach you golf. Don't I tell you I have thought about it, Jack? You're going to be as brilliant at golf as now you are at football. I'll never lose my pride in you, your huge, hard muscles and your clean fit body.

JACK. It's a great thing to be strong and master of your strength.

ELSIE. Your splendid strength! Your swiftness and your grace.

JACK. But it's a greater to be clever, and I'd give up all my strength if I could write a poem like the one your brother wrote in the Blackton Evening Times.

ELSIE (contemptuously). Leo! That weakling.

JACK. He may be, but he's got a brain.

ELSIE. You're twenty times the cleverer.

JACK. Then I'm good for something better than football. I'm up in football now as high as I can get. I used to dream of being called the finest player in the League. They've called me that these last two seasons and my dream's grown bigger. I'm honoured for my play. I'd like to gain some honour now for work.

ELSIE. You've just told me football is work.

JACK. I mean brain work. A footballer's a labouring man. And I want you, Elsie. I look to you to lead me to the higher path.

ELSIE (dejectedly). You think I can!

JACK. I know you can. You've got a fancy now for football, but it's not your real self. You're a cultured woman.

ELSIE (interrupting). Culture doesn't count.

JACK (proceeding). You've gone beyond the things that puzzle me. You're at the other side. Why, Elsie, there are things in Browning that I can't make out, and Walter Pater has me beat to atoms.

ELSIE. Those aren't the real things, Jack.

JACK. They're real enough to be the things that made me want you. I could pick and choose from lots of women fit to talk of football to me, but I'm tired of football. You're the only woman who can talk to me of other things—and you won't.

ELSIE. You're tired of football!

JACK. Not of the game. Sick of the eternal jaw about it.

ELSIE. Well, I'm sick of books.

JACK. You can't be that. Books last.

ELSIE. Your fame will last. Books aren't the real thing.

JACK. Then what is real?

ELSIE. Blood. Flesh and blood. I'd burn every book in this room for the glory of another rush like yours when you scored your second goal last Saturday. It may have lasted thirty seconds, but it was worth a wilderness of books.

JACK. It was worth just half a column in the Athletic News.

ELSIE. It's worth my love for you. It's not your brain I'm wanting, Jack. It's you. You're splendid as you are. Don't try to hide behind a dreary cloud of culture. It's better fun to be alive all over than to crawl through life with a half-dead body and a half-baked mind.

JACK. Life's not all fun.

ELSIE. It isn't, but it ought to be, and for you and me it's going to be, and if you don't stop looking serious, I'll upset you by kissing you again.

JACK. Don't do that, Elsie. It isn't right yet.

ELSIE. Jack, you've a bilious conscience. It's the only part of you that isn't gloriously fit.

JACK. Give me till I've seen your father and then perhaps you'll tire of being kissed a long while sooner than I tire of kissing you.

ELSIE It's so stupid to ask father about a thing like that. It's not his lips you're going to kiss. It's mine.

JACK. I've to satisfy my conscience, Elsie.

ELSIE. The poor thing needs a lot of nourishment.

(Enter Austin and Edmund.)

Don't stint it.

AUSTIN. Good morning, Metherell. Elsie, we've to talk business.

ELSIE. Mayn't I stay? Men are so funny when they're serious.

AUSTIN (holding door). You would find no entertainment this time.

ELSIE (passing him). That's all you know about it.

(Exit Elsie.)

AUSTIN. Sit down, Metherell. Oh, this is my brother, Mr. Edmund Whitworth.

EDMUND (shaking). I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Metherell.

(They sit down, Austin commanding, the room from the club-fender.)

AUSTIN. Very busy that train we came home by last night, Metherell.

JACK. Yes, very full.

AUSTIN. I couldn't get a chance of talking to you. Now, it's about this match to-day.

JACK. Yes?

AUSTIN. You know how tremendously important it is for Blackton.

JACK. Blackton 'ull be a second division team next season.

AUSTIN. I hope not, Metherell.

JACK (without arrogance). With me playing against them?

AUSTIN. I still hope not. Blackton must not lose today.

JACK. I don't see how they can help it.

EDMUND. You've a good opinion of yourself, I notice, Mr. Metherell.

JACK. Blackton Rovers without me aren't a team at all. They're certain to be beaten.

AUSTIN. You say that as if you don't mind if they are.

JACK. I belong to Birchester now, Mr. Whitworth.

AUSTIN. Come, Metherell, you've belonged to Birchester for half a day. You belonged to Blackton for five years. This match can make no difference to Birchester. They're half way up the list. It's critical for Blackton. You've played all these years for Blackton and you've thought Blackton all your life. You can't change your allegiance all in a moment. You can't pretend you'd like to see Blackton go down.

JACK. Oh, I've a fondness for Blackton. I don't deny it.

AUSTIN. Metherell, Blackton must win to-day.

JACK. They might have done if you hadn't transferred me.

AUSTIN. My hand was forced.

JACK. So you told me.

AUSTIN. At heart you're still a Blackton man, Metherell.

JACK. Maybe. But at Football I've signed on to play with Birchester. I may be just as sorry as yourself to see Blackton go down to-day, but as centre forward of Birchester United it's my bounden duty to do my best to send the Rovers down.

AUSTIN. Look here, Metherell, you see the hole I'm in. What am I to do?

JACK. I've no suggestions.

AUSTIN. What about the referee?

JACK. Eh?

AUSTIN. Anything to be done there?

JACK. I don't understand.

AUSTIN. Could I square him?

JACK. Not unless you want to see him lynched.

AUSTIN. Then you're the only hope.

JACK. It's a poor hope if you're looking for anything of that from me.

AUSTIN. I'm asking you to be loyal to Blackton for another day.

JACK. Were you loyal when you transferred me?

AUSTIN. Yes: loyal to Blackton's very existence. Don't play your best this afternoon. That's all I ask.

JACK. I always play my best.

EDMUND. Are you never out of form, Mr. Metherell?

JACK. I play at the top of whatever form I'm in.

EDMUND. Couldn't you make it convenient to be in particularly bad form to-day? After your long journey to and from Birchester yesterday, a tired feeling's only natural.

JACK. I'm feeling very fit. Do you know you're asking me to sell a match?

AUSTIN (firmly). Yes.

JACK. I couldn't square it with my conscience. I really couldn't, Mr. Whitworth. I know it means a lot to you, but I'm not that sort, and you ought to know it.

AUSTIN. Your conscience might be—salved.

JACK. Salved?

EDMUND. Yes. Just let us know how much you consider will cover all moral and intellectual damages, will you?

JACK (to Austin). I'm glad it wasn't you who spoke that word.

AUSTIN. I endorse it, Metherell. I told you last night how I stood. The loss of to-day's match may involve my ruin.

JACK. As bad as that? I'm sorry.

AUSTIN. Man, can't you see I'm not romancing? Do you think I'd come to you with this if I wasn't desperate?

JACK. It's a pretty desperate thing to do. Suppose I blabbed?

AUSTIN. Yes. There's that. It ought to show you just how desperate I am. You know, and no one better, how this Club's been run. You know there's blackguardism in the game, but Blackton hasn't stooped. Whatever other clubs have done, Blackton has stood for sport, the straight, the honest game. The Blackton Club's my life's work, Metherell. I might have done a nobler thing, but there it is. I chose the Club. I gave it life and kept it living, and the time's come now when I can't keep it living any more. Twice top of the League and once winners of the Cup. It's had a great past, Metherell, an honourable past. It's earned the right to live, and now it's in your hands to kill the Blackton Club and end the thing I've fostered till it's seemed I only lived for that one thing. It isn't much to ask. A little compromise to save the Club you've played for all these years, to save the club and me.

JACK. I cannot do it, Mr. Whitworth.

(Austin sinks hopelessly into armchair.)

EDMUND (briskly). Now you referred to your conscience, Mr. Metherell. My experience is that when a man does that he's open to negotiation.

JACK. Money won't buy my conscience, sir.

EDMUND (half mockingly). Well, are you open to barter?

JACK. No. The thing I want from you is no more to be bought than my conscience is.

AUSTIN (without hope). You do want something from me, then?

JACK. I want to marry Elsie.

EDMUND (shocked). My God!

AUSTIN. Does she know? (Rising.)

JACK. Does she know? She says we're to be married and that's all about it, but I'm old-fashioned and I want your leave.

EDMUND. My niece and a professional footballer!

AUSTIN. Steady, Edmund. Now, Metherell, just let us see where we stand. You propose to help Birchester to beat Blackton.

JACK. I'll do my best.

AUSTIN. And you think I'll let you ruin me first and marry my daughter afterwards?

JACK. I won't buy Elsie from you at the price of my professional honour.

AUSTIN. Professional fiddlesticks! The thing's done every day.

JACK. Not by a Blackton lad. I've learnt the game you taught me, Mr. Whitworth, the straight, clean Blackton game. I'll not forget my school even at the bidding of the head. I'm not anxious to be suspended for dishonest play.

AUSTIN. Only incompetents get suspended. You needn't fear. You're skilful.

JACK. Not at roguery.

EDMUND. You're talking straight, Mr. Metherell.

JACK. Yes. It's you that's talking crooked.

(Enter Elsie.)

ELSIE. May I come in now?

AUSTIN. No. We're busy.

ELSIE. Thank you. (Closing door.) You don't get rid of me twice with that dear old business bogey. I expect Jack's made an awful mess of it. Has he told you about us, father?

AUSTIN. No. Yes. Go away. We're talking seriously.

ELSIE. Yes. You all look very foolish. Is it settled, Jack?

JACK. No.

ELSIE. What's the trouble? Is father being ridiculous?

EDMUND. Upon my word, Elsie——

ELSIE. Oh, that's all right, uncle Ed. It does father no end of good to be talked to like that. Jack, I find I can be ready in a month after all, so that's all right.

EDMUND. Ready for what, girl?

ELSIE. My wedding, uncle. You'd better start thinking about your present.

AUSTIN. But——

ELSIE. Hasn't Jack told you we're to be married?

AUSTIN. He's told me he wants to marry you, but——

ELSIE. Then what is there to argue about? Men do love making a fuss about nothing and fancying themselves important. Come along, Jack. You're going to take me down to the ground.

EDMUND. Well, I'm——

ELSIE. Oh, dear no, Uncle. You're not.

(Elsie goes off with Jack. They reach door.)

CURTAIN.

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