Denry the Audacious

by Arnold Bennett

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 cortège 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.