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.”

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.

But in neither sheet was there a single word as to the affair.  Both had determined to be discreet; both were afraid.  The Signal feared lest it might not, if the pinch came, be able to prove its innocence of the crime of luring boys into confinement by means of toasted cheese and hot jam.  The Signal had also to consider its seriously damaged dignity; for such wounds silence is the best dressing.  The Daily was comprehensively afraid.  It had practically driven its gilded chariots through the entire Decalogue.  Moreover, it had won easily in the grand altercation.  It was exquisitely conscious of glory.

Denry went away to Blackpool, doubtless to grow his beard.

The proof of the Daily’s moral and material victory was that soon afterwards there were four applicants, men of substance, for shares in the Daily company.  And this, by the way, was the end of the tale.  For these applicants, who secured options on a majority of the shares, were emissaries of the Signal.  Armed with the options, the Signal made terms with its rival, and then by mutual agreement killed