"Played, me lad." It was the voice of the chairman of the club from the center of the grandstand. "Played, me lad." Three hundred throats echoed the cry. Zeus himself had spoken. A ragged urchin, who had paid his threepence with the best of them and had therefore a right to express his opinion in a public manner, looked up into the sweating face and the haggard eyes of Ginger as he walked off the ground. "Go 'ome, Ginger. Yer can't play for nuts. Yer no class." Like a sick gladiator, Ginger staggered into the dressing-room, but in his eyes was defiance of fate and not despair of it. "Mate," he said, in a hollow voice to the attendant, "fetch me six pennorth o' brandy." He dipped his head into a basin of cold water and then sat in a truculent silence. He did not so much as glance at the Sailor, who had the rest of the team around him. Where did Harper come from? What club did he play for? Was it true that he had been a sailor? Henry Harper was only able to answer these questions very shyly and imperfectly. He was in a dream. He could hardly realize where he was or what he was doing. When they returned to the field of play, the goalkeeper, already a favorite, was given a little private cheer. But the Sailor heard it not; he was dreaming, dreaming, walking on air. "Buck up, Ginger," piped the shrill urchin, as the tense and heroic figure of that warrior came on the field last of all. But the grim eyes and the set face were not in need of admonition. Ginger was prepared to do or die. "Cab Oss can use his weight," said the All Highest. "First good thing he's done," said Mr. Satellite Albert. The right full back, it seemed, had charged like a tiger at the center forward of the enemy and had laid him low. "Good on yer, Ginger," cried the proletariat. After this episode, the game grew rough. And this was in Ginger's favor. Outclassed he might be in pace and skill, but no human soul could outclass Ginger in sheer fighting quality when his back was to the wall. Before long the stricken lay around him. "It isn't footba'," said Mr. Augustus Higginbottom. "You can't call it footba', but it's the right game to play under the circumstances." It began to seem that the enemy would never score the goal it so much desired. The goalkeeper kept up his form in quite a marvelous way, parrying shot after shot of every range and pace from all points of the compass. He was a man inspired. And the right full back was truly terrible now. He had ceased to trouble about the ball, but wherever he saw a red-shirted adversary he brought him down and fell on him. Ginger did not achieve any particular feat of arms, but his moral effect was considerable. The shades of night were falling, but not a single goal had been scored by either party. The goalkeeper grew more and more wonderful, the right full back was more like a lion than ever.