The first goal had been scored in twenty seconds! (It was
also the last in the match.) Callear's reputation was established.
Useless for solemn experts to point out that he had simply been larking
for the gallery, and that the result was a shocking fluke--Callear's
reputation was established. He became at once the idol of the populace.
As Denry walked gingerly off the field to the grand stand he, too, was
loudly cheered, and he could not help feeling that, somehow, it was he
who had scored that goal. And although nobody uttered the precise
thought, most people did secretly think, as they gazed at the triumphant
Denry, that a man who triumphed like that, because he triumphed like
that, was the right sort of man to be mayor, the kind of man they
needed.
Denry became identified with the highest class of local football. This
fact led to a curious crisis in the history of municipal manners. On
Corporation Sunday the mayor walks to church, preceded by the mace, and
followed by the aldermen and councillors, the borough officials, the
Volunteers and the Fire Brigade; after all these, in the procession,
come individuals known as prominent citizens.
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