The effect was immediate; and it was dramatic. It broke up the meeting.
Indignation, moreover, ran so high that it came within an ace of
producing a riot in the heart of the city. The friends of the U. P.
candidate so deeply resented having such an important piece of their
ordnance stolen and used against them, that some of the more turbulent
spirits needed persuasion from the police to return quietly to their
homes.
Next day the Blackhampton _Mercury_ and other U. P. journals sternly
demanded a public inquiry into the whole affair. None was needed
really, for everybody knew the cause. All over the City it was said
that “the Old Man had got at” the electricians, the chief constable and
the city engineer. In the statelier words of the _Planet_ newspaper,
“Such an episode reflected the deepest discredit upon the city of
Blackhampton.” All the same, it was a coup. The enemy’s Long Tom had
been audaciously taken from under its nose. It was now being used with
deadly effect by the other side.
An attempt was made to bring to book the culprit-in-chief, but it was
not successful. Such a bird was too old to be caught napping. And
for some mysterious reason the efforts that were made to repair the
mischief fared no better. In spite of every precaution, the electric
current of “Endor Must Go” failed night after night, while neither the
British climate nor untoward circumstance was allowed to interfere with
the opposition sky sign “John Endor is Jannock.”
This sinister fact brought woe to the camp of Sir Stuyvescent Milgrim.
The moral effect was considerable; the whole city was kept laughing.
It was just the sort of thing, said the U. P. agent, that was likely
to lose the election. In the meantime, the comedy of the Firework
Fizzle was worked for all it was worth by its ingenious author. At
every public meeting, in alluding to it, Sir Munt was able to make new
points, while the original devisers of the stunt waxed more furious.
All kinds of analogies, humorously damaging, were drawn from this
affair. Soon all the world began to see that every audacious stroke of
badinage was one nail the more in the enemy’s coffin.
Presently a whisper arose that the greatest and most up-to-date of all
Stunt elections was going to end, like the wonderful sky sign, in a
fizzle. Certainly that fizzle had grown symbolical. The U. P. was in
danger of being hoist with its own weapons. Even the other side--for
generations Blackhampton had been notoriously a “sporting” city--did
not try to minimize the humor and the significance of the case. At the
end of a week of nightly fiascos, while John Endor Is Jannock seemed
to wax ever brighter in the heavens and its _vis-à-vis_ more dismally
waned, the sportsmen of Blackhampton--even the dogs were held to be
sportsmen in Blackhampton--took a continual delight in the affair. Sir
Munt had surpassed himself. He looked like winning the election off his
own bat.
Blackhampton grew prouder than ever of its Old Man. He had an amazing
faculty of “getting right home.” And there were other shots in his
locker. The U. P. airships, hovering proudly above Market Square, grew
subject to mysterious deflations. But the greatest coup of all, the Old
Man’s masterstroke, was the “running in” of Aunt Mittie, that voluble
and truculent lady, on a charge of brawling, and her admonition from
the bench of the City Hall.
As polling day drew on the fun grew faster and more furious. Newspaper
bombast, of which the candidate of the Ring had a complete monopoly,
could only be countered by the simple truth. And the clear facts of
the case, presented with force and skill, were very effective. It was
all very well to obscure the issues at stake by the arts of up-to-date
journalism, but those in touch with the situation soon began to realize
that what Sir Munt called “hot air by the cubit” had lost its virtue.
John Endor, in the meantime, was adding daily to the number of his
friends. In the man himself there was something British, forthright and
sincere, which did much to sustain the cause for which he was fighting.
That cause was the honesty of public life. Such an ideal ceased to be
possible the moment an all-powerful Trust was allowed to govern the
country through its own nominees.
As defined by John Endor, there could be no mistaking the issue. Much
was at stake. Democracy was not merely on its trial, it was fighting
for its life. Could the shrewd sons and daughters of the Midlands,
lulled like so many of their kind by false catchwords and pleasant
sophistries, be roused in time from their sleep?
The question was now being asked by the wisest heads in the land. And a
wave of relief flowed over the country when it was known that the new
Home Secretary, his colors nailed to the mast in open defiance of the
U. P. and all its works, had been returned for East Blackhampton by a
majority of nearly five thousand votes.