Edmund. What do you want, Metherell? Jack. I'm a man with ambitions, sir, and I heard what you said about Mr. Leo. Would you give me my articles? Edmund. My friend, you're an excellent footballer, but you'd make a shocking lawyer with that delicate conscience of yours. Mrs. Metherell. You'll go on living honestly, Jack. Jack (_submissively_). Yes, mother. Mrs. Metherell. And when you marry I'll choose you a decent hard-working girl who'll look after you properly, and not a butter-fingered lass who'll break your crockery and want waiting on hand and foot and---- Edmund. Mrs. Metherell! Mrs. Metherell. Oh, I forgot you were there. I was just talking privately to my son, same as you've been doing amongst yourselves. Edmund. We've earned that. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Metherell. Elsie. Good-bye, Jack. Jack (_taking her hand_). Good-bye, Miss Whitworth. (_Elsie turns her face away. Edmund opens door._) Austin (_shaking his hand_). Metherell, I'm sorry. Jack. You did your best to make it right. (_Exit Austin._) Edmund (_at door_). Elsie. Elsie (_going to him_). Yes, uncle? Edmund (_going out with his arm round her_). London! (_Elsie smiles gladly at him as they go out. Mrs. Metherell places teapot on table. Jack sits and resumes his tea._) CURTAIN. Note.--_The "transfer" of a football player from one team to another cannot now be made with the rapidity shown in this play. At the time when "The Game" was written, such a transfer was possible. A year or two earlier, indeed transfers were made at least as quickly as in the play--and one is allowed a certain licence of compression in a play. The instance in point is recorded in the "World's Work" for September, 1912, In an article entitled, "Is Football a Business?"_ _Mr. J. J. Bentley, ex-president and life member of the Football League, tells how he effected the transfer of a player named Charles Roberts from Grimsby to Manchester United on a Friday night, the player being at Grimsby, and Mr. Bentley in London. The matter was settled by telephone at midnight, and in sixteen hours after signing Roberts appeared in the Manchester United Colours._ ***** THE NORTHERNERS A DRAMA OF THE EIGHTEEN-TWENTIES CHARACTERS. _Factory Owners_. Ephraim Barlow; John Heppenstall Guy Barlow, _Ephraim's son_. Captain Las celles. Matthew Butterworth _Weavers_. Martin Kelsall; Joseph Healey; Henri Callard Mary Butterworth, _Matthew's wife._ Ruth Butterworth, _his daughter._ _The Scene is laid in Lancashire in 1820_. Act I. _Evening in Matt Butterworth's Cottage_. Act II.--_An evening six months later in Ephraim Barlow's house._ Act III.--_The next night. A quarry on the moors_. Act IV.--_Later the same night in Ephraim Barlow's house._ ACT I.