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 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, cocoa-nut 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 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.