I
When Denry and his mother had been established a year and a month in the
new house at Bleakridge, Denry received a visit one evening which
perhaps flattered him more than anything had ever flattered him. The
visitor was Mr. Myson. Now Mr. Myson was the founder, proprietor, and
editor of the _Five Towns Weekly_, a new organ of public opinion which
had been in existence about a year; and Denry thought that Mr. Myson had
popped in to see him in pursuit of an advertisement of the Thrift Club,
and at first he was not at all flattered.
But Mr. Myson was not hunting for advertisements, and Denry soon saw him
to be the kind of man who would be likely to depute that work to others.
Of middle height, well and quietly dressed, with a sober, assured
deportment, he spoke in a voice and accent that were not of the Five
Towns; they were superior to the Five Towns. And in fact Mr. Myson
originated in Manchester and had seen London. He was not provincial,
and he beheld the Five Towns as part of the provinces, which no native
of the Five Towns ever succeeds in doing. Nevertheless, his manner to
Denry was the summit of easy and yet deferential politeness.
He asked permission "to put something before" Denry. And when, rather
taken aback by such smooth phrases, Denry had graciously accorded the
permission, he gave a brief history of the _Five Towns Weekly_, showing
how its circulation had grown, and definitely stating that at that
moment it was yielding a profit. Then he said:
"Now my scheme is to turn it into a daily."
"Very good notion!" said Denry instinctively.
"I 'm glad you think so," said Mr. Myson. "Because I 've come here in
the hope of getting your assistance. I 'm a stranger to the district,
and I want the co-operation of some one who is n't. So I 've come to
you. I need money, of course, though I have myself what most people
would consider sufficient capital. But what I need more than money
is--well--moral support."
"And who put you on to me?" asked Denry.
Mr. Myson smiled. "I put myself on to you," said he. "I think I may
say I 've got my bearings in the Five Towns, after over a year's
journalism in it, and it appeared to me that you were the best man I
could approach. I always believe in flying high."
Therein was Denry flattered. The visit seemed to him to seal his
position in the district in a way in which his election to the Bursley
Town Council had failed to do. He had been somehow disappointed with
that election. He had desired to display his interest in the serious
welfare of the town, and to answer his opponent's arguments with better
ones. But the burgesses of his ward appeared to have no passionate love
of logic. They just cried "Good old Denry!" and elected him--with a
majority of only forty-one votes. He had expected to feel a different
Denry when he could put "Councillor" before his name. It was not so.
He had been solemnly in the mayoral procession to church, he had
attended meetings of the council, he had been nominated to the Watch
Committee. But he was still precisely the same Denry, though the
youngest member of the council. But now he was being recognised from
the outside. Mr. Myson's keen Manchester eye, ranging over the quarter
of a million inhabitants of the Five Towns in search of a representative
individual force, had settled on Denry Machin. Yes, he was flattered.
Mr. Myson's choice threw a rose light on all Denry's career; his wealth
and its origin; his house and stable, which were the astonishment and
the admiration of the town; his Universal Thrift Club; yea, and his
councillorship. After all, these _were_ marvels. (And possibly the
greatest marvel was the signed presence of his mother in that wondrous
house, and the fact that she consented to employ Rose Chudd, the
incomparable Sappho of charwomen, for three hours every day.)
In fine, he perceived from Mr. Myson's eyes that his position was
unique.
And after they had chatted a little, and the conversation had deviated
momentarily from journalism to house property, he offered to display
Machin House (as he had christened it) to Mr. Myson, and Mr. Myson was
really impressed beyond the ordinary. Mr. Myson's homage to Mrs.
Machin, whom they chanced on in the paradise of the bathroom, was the
polished mirror of courtesy. How Denry wished that he could behave like
that when he happened to meet countesses!
Then, once more in the drawing-room, they resumed the subject of
newspapers.
"You know," said Mr. Myson. "It 's really a very bad thing indeed for a
district to have only one daily newspaper. I 've nothing myself to say
against _The Staffordshire Signal_, but you 'd perhaps be
astonished"--this in a confidential tone--"at the feeling there is
against the _Signal_ in many quarters."
"Really!" said Denry.
"Of course its fault is that it is n't sufficiently interested in the
great public questions of the district. And it can't be. Because it
can't take a definite side. It must try to please all parties. At any
rate it must offend none. That is the great evil of a journalistic
monopoly.... Two hundred and fifty thousand people--why! there is an
ample public for two first-class papers! Look at Nottingham! Look at
Bristol! Look at Leeds! Look at Sheffield! ... And _their_
newspapers."
And Denry endeavoured to look at these great cities! Truly the Five
Towns was just about as big.
The dizzy journalistic intoxication seized him. He did not give Mr.
Myson an answer at once, but he gave himself an answer at once. He
would go into the immense adventure. He was very friendly with the
_Signal_ people--certainly; but business was business, and the highest
welfare of the Five Towns was the highest welfare of the Five Towns.
Soon afterwards all the hoardings of the district spoke with one blue
voice, and said that the _Five Towns Weekly_ was to be transformed into
the _Five Towns Daily_, with four editions beginning each day at noon,
and that the new organ would be conducted on the lines of a first-class
evening paper.
The inner ring of knowing ones knew that a company entitled "The Five
Towns Newspapers, Limited," had been formed, with a capital of ten
thousand pounds, and that Mr. Myson held three thousand pounds' worth of
shares, and the great Denry Machin one thousand five hundred, and that
the remainder were to be sold and allotted as occasion demanded. The
inner ring said that nothing would ever be able to stand up against the
_Signal_. On the other hand, it admitted that Denry, the most
prodigious card ever born into the Five Towns, had never been floored by
anything or anybody. The inner ring anticipated the future with glee.
Denry and Mr. Myson anticipated the future with righteous confidence.
As for the _Signal_, it went on its august way, calmly blind to
sensational hoardings.
II
On the day of the appearance of the first issue of the _Five Towns
Daily_, the offices of the new paper at Hanbridge gave proof of their
excellent organisation, working in all details with an admirable
smoothness. In the basement a Marinoni machine thundered like a sucking
dove to produce fifteen thousand copies an hour. On the ground floor
ingenious arrangements had been made for publishing the paper; in
particular, the iron railings to keep the boys in order in front of the
publishing counter had been imitated from the _Signal_. On the first
floor was the editor and founder, with his staff, and above that the
composing department. The number of stairs that separated the composing
department from the machine room was not a positive advantage, but
bricks and mortar are inelastic, and one does what one can. The offices
looked very well from the outside, and they compared passably with the
offices of the _Signal_ close by. The posters were duly in the
ground-floor windows, and gold signs, one above another to the roof,
produced an air of lucrative success.
Denry happened to be in the _Daily_ offices that afternoon. He had had
nothing to do with the details of organisation, for details of
organisation were not his speciality. His speciality was large, leading
ideas. He knew almost nothing of the agreements with correspondents and
Press Association and Central News and the racing services and the
fiction syndicates, nor of the difficulties with the Compositors' Union,
nor of the struggle to lower the price of paper by the twentieth of a
penny per pound, nor of the awful discounts allowed to certain
advertisers, nor of the friction with the railway company, nor of the
sickening adulation that had been lavished on quite unimportant news
agents, nor--worst of all--of the dearth of newsboys. These matters did
not attract him. He could not stoop to them. But when Mr. Myson, calm
and proud, escorted him down to the machine room, and the Marinoni threw
a folded pink _Daily_ almost into his hands, and it looked exactly like
a real newspaper, and he saw one of his own descriptive articles in it,
and he reflected that he was an owner of it--then Denry was attracted
and delighted, and his heart beat. For this pink thing was the symbol
and result of the whole affair, and had the effect of a miracle on him.
And he said to himself, never guessing how many thousands of men had
said it before him, that a newspaper was the finest toy in the world.
About four o'clock the publisher, in shirt sleeves and an apron, came up
to Mr. Myson and respectfully asked him to step into the publishing
office. Mr. Myson stepped into the publishing office, and Denry with
him, and they there beheld a small, ragged boy with a bleeding nose and
a bundle of _Dailys_ in his wounded hand.
"Yes," the boy sobbed; "and they said they 'd cut my eyes out and plee
[play] marbles wi' 'em, if they cotched me in Crown Square agen." And
he threw down the papers with a final yell.
The two directors learnt that the delicate threat had been uttered by
four _Signal_ boys who had objected to any fellow-boys offering any
paper other than the _Signal_ for sale in Crown Square or anywhere else.
Of course, it was absurd.
Still, absurd as it was, it continued. The central publishing offices
of the _Daily_ at Hanbridge, and its branch offices in the neighbouring
towns, were like military hospitals, and the truth appeared to the
directors that while the public was panting to buy copies of the
_Daily_, the sale of the _Daily_ was being prevented by means of a
scandalous conspiracy on the part of _Signal_ boys. For it must be
understood that in the Five Towns people prefer to catch their newspaper
in the street as it flies and cries. The _Signal_ had a vast army of
boys, to whom every year it gave a great fete. Indeed, the _Signal_
possessed nearly all the available boys, and assuredly all the most
pugilistic and strongest boys. Mr. Myson had obtained boys only after
persistent inquiry and demand, and such as he had found were not the
fittest, and therefore were unlikely to survive. You would have
supposed that in a district that never ceases to grumble about bad trade
and unemployment, thousands of boys would have been delighted to buy the
_Daily_ at fourpence a dozen and sell it at sixpence. But it was not
so.
On the second day the dearth of boys at the offices of the _Daily_ was
painful. There was that magnificent, enterprising newspaper waiting to
be sold, and there was the great enlightened public waiting to buy; and
scarcely any business could be done because the _Signal_ boys had
established a reign of terror over their puny and upstart rivals!
The situation was unthinkable.
Still, unthinkable as it was, it continued. Mr. Myson had thought of
everything except this. Naturally it had not occurred to him that an
immense and serious effort for the general weal was going to be blocked
by a gang of tatterdemalions.
He complained, with dignity, to the _Signal_, and was informed, with
dignity, by the _Signal_ that the _Signal_ could not be responsible for
the playful antics of its boys in the streets; that, in short, the Five
Towns was a free country. In the latter proposition Mr. Myson did not
concur.
After trouble in the persuasion of parents--astonishing how indifferent
the Five Towns' parent was to the loss of blood by his offspring!--a
case reached the police-court. At the hearing the _Signal_ gave a
solicitor a watching brief, and that solicitor expressed the _Signal's_
horror of carnage. The evidence was excessively contradictory, and the
Stipendiary dismissed the summons with a good joke. The sole definite
result was that the boy whose father had ostensibly brought the summons
got his ear torn within a quarter of an hour of leaving the court. Boys
will be boys.
Still, the _Daily_ had so little faith in human nature that it could not
believe that the _Signal_ was not secretly encouraging its boys to be
boys. It could not believe that the _Signal_, out of a sincere desire
for fair play and for the highest welfare of the district, would
willingly sacrifice nearly half its circulation and a portion of its
advertisement revenue. And the hurt tone of Mr. Myson's leading
articles seemed to indicate that in Mr. Myson's opinion his older rival
_ought_ to do everything in its power to ruin itself. The _Signal_
never spoke of the fight. The _Daily_ gave shocking details of it every
day.
The struggle trailed on through the weeks.
Then Denry had one of his ideas. An advertisement was printed in the
_Daily_ for two hundred able-bodied men to earn two shillings for
working six hours a day. An address different from the address of the
_Daily_ was given. By a ruse Denry procured the insertion of the
advertisement in the _Signal_ also.
"We must expend our capital on getting the paper on to the streets,"
said Denry. "That's evident. We 'll have it sold by men. We 'll soon
see if the _Signal_ ragamuffins will attack _them_. And we won't pay
'em by results; we'll pay 'em a fixed wage; that 'll fetch 'em. And a
commission, on sales into the bargain. Why! I would n't mind engaging
_five_ hundred men. Swamp the streets! That's it! Hang expense. And
when we 've done the trick, then we can go back to the boys; they'll
have learnt their lesson."
And Mr. Myson agreed, and was pleased that Denry was living up to his
reputation.
The state of the earthenware trade was supposed that summer to be worse
than it had been since 1869, and the grumblings of the unemployed were
prodigious, even seditious. Mr. Myson, therefore, as a measure of
precaution engaged a couple of policemen to ensure order at the address,
and during the hours, named in the advertisement as a rendezvous for
respectable men in search of a well-paid job. Having regard to the
thousands of perishing families in the Five Towns, he foresaw a rush and
a crush of eager breadwinners. Indeed, the arrangements were elaborate.
Forty minutes after the advertised time for the opening of the reception
of respectable men in search of money four men had arrived. Mr. Myson,
mystified, thought that there had been a mistake in the advertisement.
But there was no mistake in the advertisement. A little later two more
men came. Of the six, three were tipsy, and the other three absolutely
declined to be seen selling papers in the streets. Two were abusive,
one facetious. Mr. Myson did not know his Five Towns; nor did Denry. A
man in the Five Towns, when he can get neither bread nor beer, will keep
himself and his family on pride and water.
The policemen went off to more serious duties.
III
Then came the announcement of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the
_Signal_, and of the processional fete by which the _Signal_ was at once
to give itself a splendid spectacular advertisement and to reward and
enhearten its boys. The _Signal_ meant to liven up the streets of the
Five Towns on that great day by means of a display of all the gilt
chariots of Snape's Circus in the main thoroughfares. Many of the boys
would be in the gilt chariots. Copies of the anniversary number of the
_Signal_ would be sold from the gilt chariots. The idea was excellent,
and it showed that after all the _Signal_ was getting just a little more
afraid of its young rival than it had pretended to be.
For, strange to say, after a trying period of hesitation, the _Five
Towns Daily_ was slightly on the upward curve--thanks to Denry. Denry
did not mean to be beaten by the puzzle which the _Daily_ offered to his
intelligence. There the _Daily_ was, full of news, and with quite an
encouraging show of advertisements, printed on real paper with real
ink--and yet it would not "go." Notoriously the _Signal_ earned a net
profit of at the very least five thousand a year, whereas the _Daily_
earned a net loss of at the very least sixty pounds a week--and of that
sixty quite a third was Denry's money. He could not explain it. Mr.
Myson tried to rouse the public by passionately stirring up extremely
urgent matters--such as the smoke-nuisance, the increase of the rates,
the park question, German competition, technical education for
apprentices; but the public obstinately would not be roused concerning
its highest welfare to the point of insisting on a regular supply of the
_Daily_. If a mere five thousand souls had positively demanded daily a
copy of the _Daily_ and not slept till boys or agents had responded to
their wish, the troubles of the _Daily_ would soon have vanished. But
this ridiculous public did not seem to care which paper was put into its
hand in exchange for its halfpenny so long as the sporting news was put
there. It simply was indifferent. It failed to see the importance to
such an immense district of having two flourishing and mutually opposing
daily organs. The fundamental boy difficulty remained ever-present.
And it was the boy difficulty that Denry perseveringly and ingeniously
attacked, until at length the _Daily_ did indeed possess some sort of a
brigade of its own, and the bullying and slaughter in the streets (so
amusing to the inhabitants) grew a little less one-sided.
A week or more before the _Signal's_ anniversary day Denry heard that
the _Signal_ was secretly afraid lest the _Daily's_ brigade might
accomplish the marring of its gorgeous procession, and that the _Signal_
was ready to do anything to smash the _Daily's_ brigade. He laughed; he
said he did not mind. About that time hostilities were rather acute;
blood was warming, and both papers, in the excitation of rivalry, had
partially lost the sense of what was due to the dignity of great organs.
By chance a tremendous local football match--Knype v. Bursley--fell on
the very Saturday of the procession. The rival arrangements for the
reporting of the match were as tremendous as the match itself, and
somehow the match seemed to add keenness to the journalistic struggle,
especially as the _Daily_ favoured Bursley and the _Signal_ was
therefore forced to favour Knype.
By all the laws of hazard there ought to have been a hitch on that
historic Saturday. Telephone or telegraph ought to have broken down, or
rain ought to have made play impossible. But no hitch occurred. And at
five-thirty o'clock of a glorious afternoon in earliest November the
_Daily_ went to press with a truly brilliant account of the manner in
which Bursley (for the first and last time in its history) had defeated
Knype by one goal to none. Mr. Myson was proud. Mr. Myson defied the
_Signal_ to beat his descriptive report. As for the _Signal's_
procession--well, Mr. Myson and the chief sub-editor of the _Daily_
glanced at each other and smiled.
And a few minutes later the _Daily_ boys were rushing out of the
publishing-room with bundles of papers--assuredly in advance of the
_Signal_.
It was at this juncture that the unexpected began to occur to the
_Daily_ boys. The publishing door of the _Daily_ opened into Stanway
Rents, a narrow alley in a maze of mean streets behind Crown Square. In
Stanway Rents was a small warehouse in which, according to rumours of
the afternoon, a free soup kitchen was to be opened. And just before
the football edition of the _Daily_ came off the Marinoni, it
emphatically was opened, and there issued from its inviting gate an
odour--not, to be sure, of soup, but of toasted cheese and hot jam--such
an odour as had never before tempted the nostrils of a _Daily_ boy; a
unique and omnipotent odour. Several boys (who, I may state frankly,
were traitors to the _Daily_ cause, spies and mischief-makers from
elsewhere) raced unhesitatingly in, crying that toasted cheese
sandwiches and jam tarts were to be distributed like lightning to all
authentic newspaper lads.
The entire gang followed--scores, over a hundred--inwardly expecting to
emerge instantly with teeth fully employed, followed like sheep unto a
fold.
And the gate was shut.
Toasted cheese and hot jammy pastry were faithfully served to the ragged
host--but with no breathless haste. And when, loaded, the boys
struggled to depart, they were instructed by the kind philanthropist who
had fed them to depart by another exit and they discovered themselves in
an enclosed yard of which the double doors were apparently unyielding.
And the warehouse door was shut also. And, as the cheese and jam
disappeared, shouts of fury arose on the air. The yard was so close to
the offices of the _Daily_ that the chimney-pots of those offices could
actually be seen. And yet the shouting brought no answer from the lords
of the _Daily_, congratulating themselves up there on their fine account
of the football match, and on their celerity in going to press, and on
the loyalty of their brigade.
The _Signal_, it need not be said, disavowed complicity in this
extraordinary entrapping of the _Daily_ brigade by means of an odour.
Could it be held responsible for the excesses of its disinterested
sympathisers? ... Still, the appalling trick showed the high temperature
to which blood had risen in the genial battle between great rival
organs. Persons in the very inmost ring whispered that Denry Machin had
at length been bested on this critically important day.
IV
Snape's Circus used to be one of the great shining institutions of North
Staffordshire, trailing its magnificence on sculptured wheels from town
to town, and occupying the dreams of boys from one generation to
another. Its headquarters were at Axe, in the Moorlands, ten miles away
from Hanbridge, but the riches of old Snape had chiefly come from the
Five Towns. At the time of the struggle between the _Signal_ and the
_Daily_ its decline had already begun. The aged proprietor had recently
died, and the name, and the horses, and the chariots, and the carefully
repaired tents had been sold to strangers. On the Saturday of the
anniversary and the football match (which was also Martinmas Saturday)
the circus was set up at Oldcastle, on the edge of the Five Towns, and
was giving its final performances of the season. Even boys will not go
to circuses in the middle of a Five Towns' winter. The _Signal_ people
had hired the processional portion of Snape's for the late afternoon and
early evening. And the instructions were that the entire _cortege_
should be round about the _Signal_ offices, in marching order, not later
than five o'clock.
But at four o'clock several gentlemen with rosettes in their
button-holes and _Signal_ posters in their hands arrived important and
panting at the fair-ground at Oldcastle and announced that the programme
had been altered at the last moment in order to defeat certain feared
machinations of the unscrupulous _Daily_. The cavalcade was to be split
into three groups, one of which, the chief, was to enter Hanbridge by a
"back road" and the other two were to go to Bursley and Longshaw
respectively. In this manner the forces of advertisement would be
distributed and the chief parts of the district equally honoured.
The special linen banners, pennons, and ribbons--bearing the words
"Signal: Thirty-fifth Anniversary," etc.--had already been hung, and
planted, and draped about the gilded summits of the chariots. And after
some delay the processions were started separating at the bottom of the
Cattle-market. The head of the Hanbridge part of the procession
consisted of an enormous car of Jupiter, with six wheels and thirty-six
paregorical figures (as the clown used to say), and drawn by six
pie-bald steeds guided by white reins. This coach had a windowed
interior (at the greater fairs it sometimes served as a box-office), and
in the interior one of the delegates of the _Signal_ had fixed himself;
from it he directed the paths of the procession.
It would be futile longer to conceal that the delegate of the _Signal_
in the bowels of the car of Jupiter was not honestly a delegate of the
_Signal_ at all. He was, indeed, Denry Machin, and none other. From
this single fact it will be seen to what extent the representatives of
great organs had forgotten what was due to their dignity and to public
decency. Ensconced in his lair, Denry directed the main portion of the
_Signal's_ advertising procession by all manner of discreet lanes round
the skirts of Hanbridge and so into the town from the hilly side. And
ultimately the ten vehicles halted in Crapper Street, to the joy of the
simple inhabitants.
Denry emerged and wandered innocently towards the offices of his paper,
which were close by. It was getting late. The first yelling of the
imprisoned _Daily_ boys was just beginning to rise on the autumn air.
Suddenly Denry was accosted by a young man.
"Hello, Machin!" cried the young man. "What have you shaved your beard
off for? I scarcely knew you."
"I just thought I would, Swetnam," said Denry, who was obviously
discomposed.
It was the youngest of the Swetnam boys; he and Denry had taken a sort
of curt fancy to one another.
"I say," said Swetnam confidentially, as if obeying a swift impulse, "I
did hear that the _Signal_ people meant to collar all your chaps this
afternoon, and I believe they have done. Hear that now?" (Swetnam's
father was exceedingly intimate with the _Signal_ people.)
"I know," Denry replied.
"But I mean--papers and all."
"I know," said Denry.
"Oh!" murmured Swetnam.
"But I 'll tell you a secret," Denry added. "They are n't to-day's
papers. They 're yesterday's, and last week's, and last month's. We
've been collecting them specially and keeping them nice and
new-looking."
"Well, you're a caution!" murmured Swetnam.
"I am," Denry agreed.
A number of men rushed at that instant with bundles of the genuine
football edition from the offices of the _Daily_.
"Come on!" Denry cried to them. "Come on! This way! By-by, Swetnam."
And the whole file vanished round a corner. The yelling of imprisoned
cheese-fed boys grew louder.
V
In the meantime at the _Signal_ office (which was not three hundred
yards away, but on the other side of Crown Square) apprehension had
deepened into anxiety as the minutes passed and the Snape Circus
procession persisted in not appearing on the horizon of the Oldcastle
Road. The _Signal_ would have telephoned to Snape's but for the fact
that a circus is never on the telephone. It then telephoned to its
Oldcastle agent, who, after a long delay, was able to reply that the
cavalcade had left Oldcastle at the appointed hour with every sign of
health and energy. Then the _Signal_ sent forth scouts all down the
Oldcastle Road to put spurs into the procession, and the scouts returned
having seen nothing. Pessimists glanced at the possibility of the whole
procession having fallen into the canal at Cauldon Bridge. The paper
was printed, the train parcels for Knype, Longshaw, Bursley, and
Turnhill were despatched; the boys were waiting; the fingers of the
clock in the publishing department were simply flying. It had been
arranged that the bulk of the Hanbridge edition, and in particular the
first copies of it, should be sold by boys from the gilt chariots
themselves. The publisher hesitated for an awful moment, and then
decided that he could wait no more and that the boys must sell the
papers in the usual way from the pavements and gutters. There was no
knowing what the _Daily_ might not be doing.
And then _Signal_ boys in dozens rushed forth paper-laden, but they were
disappointed boys; they had thought to ride in gilt chariots, not to
paddle in mud. And almost the first thing they saw in Crown Square was
the car of Jupiter in its glory, flying all the _Signal_ colours; and
other cars behind. They did not rush now; they sprang, as from a
catapult; and alighted like flies on the vehicles. Men insisted on
taking their papers from them and paying for them on the spot. The boys
were startled; they were entirely puzzled; but they had not the habit of
refusing money. And off went the procession to the music of its own
band down the road to Knype, and perhaps a hundred boys on board,
cheering. The men in charge then performed a curious act; they tore
down all the _Signal_ flagging, and replaced it with the emblem of the
_Daily_.
So that all the great and enlightened public, wandering home in crowds
from the football match at Knype, had the spectacle of a _Daily_
procession instead of a _Signal_ procession, and could scarce believe
their eyes. And _Dailys_ were sold in quantities from the cars. At
Knype Station the procession curved and returned to Hanbridge, and
finally, after a multitudinous triumph, came to a stand with all its
_Daily_ bunting in front of the _Signal_ offices; and Denry appeared
from his lair. Denry's men fled with bundles.
"They 're an hour and a half late," said Denry calmly to one of the
proprietors of the _Signal_, who was on the pavement. "But I 've
managed to get them here. I thought I 'd just look in to thank you for
giving such a good feed to our lads."
The telephones hummed with news of similar _Daily_ processions in
Longshaw and Bursley. And there was not a high-class private bar in the
district that did not tinkle with delighted astonishment at the brazen,
the inconceivable effrontery of that card, Denry Machin. Many people
foresaw lawsuits, but it was agreed that the _Signal_ had begun the game
of impudence, in trapping the _Daily_ lads so as to secure a holy calm
for its much-trumpeted procession.
And Denry had not finished with the _Signal_.
In the special football edition of the _Daily_ was an announcement, the
first, of special Martinmas fetes organised by the Five Towns _Daily_.
And on the same morning every member of the Universal Thrift Club had
received an invitation to the said fetes. They were three--held on
public ground at Hanbridge, Bursley, and Longshaw. They were in the
style of the usual Five Towns "wakes"; that is to say, roundabouts,
shows, gingerbread stalls, swings, cocoa-nut shies. But at each fete a
new and very simple form of "shy" had been erected. It consisted of a
row of small railway signals.
"March up! March up!" cried the shy-men. "Knock down the signal! Knock
down the signal! And a packet of Turkish delight is yours. Knock down
the signal!"
And when you had knocked down the signal the men cried:
"We wrap it up for you in the special Anniversary Number of the
_Signal_."
And they disdainfully tore into suitable fragments copies of the
_Signal_ which had cost Denry and Co. a halfpenny each, and enfolded the
Turkish delight therein and handed it to you with a smack.
And all the fair-grounds were carpeted with draggled and muddy
_Signals_. People were up to the ankles in _Signals_.
The affair was the talk of Sunday. Few matters in the Five Towns had
raised more gossip than did that enormous escapade which Denry invented
and conducted. The moral damage to the _Signal_ was held to approach
the disastrous. And now not the possibility but the probability of
lawsuits was incessantly discussed.
On the Monday both papers were bought with anxiety. Everybody was
frothing to know what the respective editors would say.
But in neither sheet was there a single word as to the affair. Both had
determined to be discreet; both were afraid. The _Signal_ feared lest
it might not, if the pinch came, be able to prove its innocence of the
crime of luring boys into confinement by means of toasted cheese and hot
jam. The _Signal_ had also to consider its seriously damaged dignity;
for such wounds silence is the best dressing. The _Daily_ was
comprehensively afraid. It had practically driven its gilded chariots
through the entire Decalogue. Moreover, it had won easily in the grand
altercation. It was exquisitely conscious of glory.
Denry went away to Blackpool, doubtless to grow his beard.
The proof of the _Daily's_ moral and material victory was that soon
afterwards there were four applicants, men of substance, for shares in
the _Daily_ company. And this, by the way, was the end of the tale.
For these applicants, who secured options on a majority of the shares,
were emissaries of the _Signal_. Armed with the options, the _Signal_
made terms with its rival, and then by mutual agreement killed it. The
price of its death was no trifle, but it was less than a year's profits
of the _Signal_. Denry considered that he had been "done." But in the
depths of his heart he was glad that he had been done. He had had too
disconcerting a glimpse of the rigours and perils of journalism to wish
to continue in it. He had scored supremely, and, for him, to score was
life itself. His reputation as a card was far, far higher than ever.
Had he so desired, he could have been elected to the House of Commons on
the strength of his procession and fete.
Mr. Myson, somewhat scandalised by the exuberance of his partner,
returned to Manchester.
And the _Signal_, subsequently often referred to as "The Old Lady,"
resumed its monopolistic sway over the opinions of a quarter of a
million of people, and has never since been attacked.