to be worse
than it had been since 1869, and the grumblings of the unemployed were
prodigious, even seditious. Mr Myson therefore, as a measure of
precaution, engaged a couple of policemen to ensure order at the
address, and during the hours, named in the advertisement as a
rendezvous for respectable men in search of a well-paid job. Having
regard to the thousands of perishing families in the Five Towns, he
foresaw a rush and a crush of eager breadwinners. Indeed, the
arrangements were elaborate.

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 advertisement,
but there was no mistake in the advertisement. 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
advertisement 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 advertisements, 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 c