Sentence The Fivehundredandsixtyfourth

 

It may indeed be a truism, to say that you can fool most of the people most of the time, but the one person you cannot fool, ever, is Snooker Tam! and while the Peelers had failed to come up Trumps in their search for The Intruder, Snooker Tam, and his brother Boabie, still had their eyes peeled for the scoundrel, little guessing that he had adopted the identity of another, sadly deceased person, and was presently inhabiting that person's identity, home and pretty young wife – a nidicolous cuckoo if ever I saw one; now, to Grown-ups, the City is a Big Place, and they imagine that for Kids it must seem Huge, Vast, Ginormous, but that is because they have forgotten how to view things, and one of the many possible perspectives Kids have is Subjective-Objectivity: they scan a place like George Square, or Hampden Park or The Barras, and see only what is of interest to them, and when they scan

a crowd coming out of John Brown's Shipyard in Govan, or at Ibrox or Firhill, they see only who is of interest to them. and so it was that Saturday – 16th November 1946 – when their Da, Connor O'Hare, said he would take the boys to see The Bhoys playing the Jags at Firhill, they were cock-a-hoop: like their Da they were ardent Celtic fans and this was a big match, as both teams were determined to do well in this first Division A season since the war had ended last year, and they had last played – at Parkhead – in July, a match that Celtic (The Bhoys to their staunchest fans) won easily, and for this

re-match all three wore their scarves with pride and, once in the stands, in a grand vantage point, they excitedly waited for the match to begin, so it was just as the two teams ran onto the field that Tam saw him: The Intruder; oh, he looked different, with a moustache and tweed suit and a cap on his head, but Tam would have recognised him anywhere: "look, Boabie," he said to his brother and pointed and Boabie too recognised The Intruder instantly: "it's him!" he yelled back excitedly and they both tugged at Connor's sleeves and pointed out the man, away on the opposite side, with a Jags scarf wound round his neck, but Connor couldn't pick him out of the vast crowd, until the boys described the men around him and then Connor, too, registered the face: "ach, maybe aye, maybe no," he hummed and hawed, "how can ye be sae sure," but they couldn't be placated, and Tam, mixing metaphors with the usual abandon of youth said: "if it wis a ballot o aw the fatties in Pertick, he'd be voted the yin maist likely tae Intrude into we'se hoose, Da' he's the Front rinner in a field of wan!" and so convincing was his son’s persuasion that, despite the distraction from the game he agreed to try to get near the man and slowly, as play ebbed to and fro below them, the three edged and jostled and squeezed their way around behind the Jags goal, only pausing to join in the bathetic groan which contrasted with the Firhill Roar when Glover scored the first goal for Thistle, and at last they were

right behind their target; now Connor counselled caution – they couldn't go making accusations without absolute certainty, and while he studied the man's physique, trying to picture that of The Intruder he had run down the stirs before pitching him into the road, he managed to mollify them with a promise that they would follow their man afterwards and try to find out where he was hiding!