The Card, a Story of Adventure in the Five Towns Part 27

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 advertis.e.m.e.nt, but there was no mistake in the advertis.e.m.e.nt. 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 Five Towns' man, 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 thoroughfare. 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts, 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 pa.s.sionately stirring up extremely urgent matters--such as the smoke nuisance, the increase of the rates, the park question, German compet.i.tion, 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 Sat.u.r.day. 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--a.s.suredly 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 into 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 chimneypots 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 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 inst.i.tutions 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 Sat.u.r.day of the anniversary and the football match (which was also Martinmas Sat.u.r.day) 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 b.u.t.ton-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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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," &c.

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 piebald 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 c.r.a.pper 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.

"h.e.l.lo, 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 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 aren'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 pa.s.sed 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 ca.n.a.l 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 quant.i.ties from the cars. At Knype Station the procession curved and returned to Hanbridge, and finally, after a mult.i.tudinous 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-cla.s.s 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 law-suits, 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, cocoanut 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_."