But already Mr. Chowdler was far away. He had caught sight of Mr. Trimble’s retreating figure, and was hurrying after him with the chivalrous intention of pouring balm into smarting wounds. Mr. Trimble was, indeed, making off as fast as he could, in the hope of avoiding an application of this particular balm, which he had sampled on previous occasions and which had always disagreed with him. His nerves were tingling, and he was conscious of a feeling of suppressed irritation which, he knew, would give him a broken night and spoil life for several days. Suddenly, a heavy woollen glove descended on to his shoulder and a manly voice panted in his ear: “Condolences, poor old boy, condolences! My turn to-day, yours, perhaps, to-morrow!” “Hullo!” said Mr. Trimble, turning round and shuddering slightly under the caress. “Is that you, Chowdler? I was looking for you; congratulations.” “Ta,” said Mr. Chowdler, without removing his hand. “Ta. We were a bit too good for you, but you put up a tip-top fight. I’m afraid your lot are a bit done up; it always tells hardest on the beaten side. I expect my own lads have had very nearly as much as they wanted. But _what_ a game!” It is much easier to congratulate a successful rival warmly than to receive his condolences gratefully; and Mr. Trimble’s vexation pierced through his reply. “It was indeed,” he replied; “the worst exhibition I’ve ever seen in a Cock-house match! On to-day’s form any ordinarily respectable side ought to have whopped you, but my lot were simply beneath contempt: they didn’t deserve to win. Plenty of spirit, of course: one expects that; but _the_ very worst football I’ve ever seen in Colonus.” Mr. Chowdler withdrew his hand and the balm with it. As he said afterwards to his wife, poor old Trimble never could take a beating. To Mr. Chowdler the victory did not mean merely that his boys, by superior luck or skill, had scored one goal more than the boys of another house. It meant, somehow, that the Lanchester tradition had been vindicated; that all that was best and noblest in the place, all that made the past glorious and the present fruitful, had, in the face of tremendous odds, asserted itself in a supreme and convincing manner. He was glad that his house had taken the field with two of their best players away, glad that le Willow had sprained his ankle and that the referee had been flagrantly unfair. All things had worked together for good, and misfortunes which looked like irretrievable disasters had only served to enhance the moral sublimity of the victory. “God’s in his Heaven, all’s right with the world.”