The Card, a Story of Adventure in the Five TownsBennett, Arnold
General
The Card, a Story of Adventure in the Five Towns
Bennett, Arnold
Adventure stories; City and town life -- Fiction; Staffordshire (England) -- Fiction
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 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 _fêtes_ 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 _fêtes_. 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 _fête_ 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 & 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 have
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 law-suits was incessantly discussed.
On the Monday both papers were bought with anxiety. Everybody was
frothing to know what the respective editors would say.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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