Denry the Audacious

by Arnold Bennett

  In fine, he perceived from Mr. Myson's eyes that his position wasunique.

  And after they had chatted a little, and the conversation had deviatedmomentarily from journalism to house property, he offered to displayMachin House (as he had christened it) to Mr. Myson, and Mr. Myson wasreally impressed beyond the ordinary. Mr. Myson's homage to Mrs.Machin, whom they chanced on in the paradise of the bathroom, was thepolished mirror of courtesy. How Denry wished that he could behave likethat when he happened to meet countesses!

  Then, once more in the drawing-room, they resumed the subject ofnewspapers.

  "You know," said Mr. Myson. "It 's really a very bad thing indeed for adistrict to have only one daily newspaper. I 've nothing myself to sayagainst _The Staffordshire Signal_, but you 'd perhaps beastonished"--this in a confidential tone--"at the feeling there isagainst the _Signal_ in many quarters."

  "Really!" said Denry.

  "Of course its fault is that it is n't sufficiently interested in thegreat public questions of the district. And it can't be. Because itcan't take a definite side. It must try to please all parties. At anyrate it must offend none. That is the great evil of a journalisticmonopoly.... Two hundred and fifty thousand people--why! there is anample public for two first-class papers! Look at Nottingham! Look atBristol! Look at Leeds! Look at Sheffield! ... And _their_newspapers."

  And Denry endeavoured to look at these great cities! Truly the FiveTowns was just about as big.

  The dizzy journalistic intoxication seized him. He did not give Mr.Myson an answer at once, but he gave himself an answer at once. Hewould go into the immense adventure. He was very friendly with the_Signal_ people--certainly; but business was business, and the highestwelfare of the Five Towns was the highest welfare of the Five Towns.

  Soon afterwards all the hoardings of the district spoke with one bluevoice, and said that the _Five Towns Weekly_ was to be transformed intothe _Five Towns Daily_, with four editions beginning each day at noon,and that the new organ would be conducted on the lines of a first-classevening paper.

  The inner ring of knowing ones knew that a company entitled "The FiveTowns Newspapers, Limited," had been formed, with a capital of tenthousand pounds, and that Mr. Myson held three thousand pounds' worth ofshares, and the great Denry Machin one thousand five hundred, and thatthe remainder were to be sold and allotted as occasion demanded. Theinner ring said that nothing would ever be able to stand up against the_Signal_. On the other hand, it admitted that Denry, the mostprodigious card ever born into the Five Towns, had never been floored byanything or anybody. The inner ring anticipated the future with glee.Denry and Mr. Myson anticipated the future with righteous confidence.As for the _Signal_, it went on its august way, calmly blind tosensational hoardings.

  II

  On the day of the appearance of the first issue of the _Five TownsDaily_, the offices of the new paper at Hanbridge gave proof of theirexcellent organisation, working in all details with an admirablesmoothness. In the basement a Marinoni machine thundered like a suckingdove to produce fifteen thousand copies an hour. On the ground flooringenious arrangements had been made for publishing the paper; inparticular, the iron railings to keep the boys in order in front of thepublishing counter had been imitated from the _Signal_. On the firstfloor was the editor and founder, with his staff, and above that thecomposing department. The number of stairs that separated the composingdepartment from the machine room was not a positive advantage, butbricks and mortar are inelastic, and one does what one can. The officeslooked very well from the outside, and they compared passably with theoffices of the _Signal_ close by. The posters were duly in theground-floor windows, and gold signs, one above another to the roof,produced an air of lucrative success.

  Denry happened to be in the _Daily_ offices that afternoon. He had hadnothing to do with the details of organisation, for details oforganisation were not his speciality. His speciality was large, leadingideas. He knew almost nothing of the agreements with correspondents andPress Association and Central News and the racing services and thefiction syndicates, nor of the difficulties with the Compositors' Union,nor of the struggle to lower the price of paper by the twentieth of apenny per pound, nor of the awful discounts allowed to certainadvertisers, nor of the friction with the railway company, nor of thesickening adulation that had been lavished on quite unimportant newsagents, nor--worst of all--of the dearth of newsboys. These matters didnot attract him. He could not stoop to them. But when Mr. Myson, calmand proud, escorted him down to the machine room, and the Marinoni threwa folded pink _Daily_ almost into his hands, and it looked exactly likea real newspaper, and he saw one of his own descriptive articles in it,and he reflected that he was an owner of it--then Denry was attractedand delighted, and his heart beat. For this pink thing was the symboland result of the whole affair, and had the effect of a miracle on him.

  And he said to himself, never guessing how many thousands of men hadsaid it before him, that a newspaper was the finest toy in the world.

  About four o'clock the publisher, in shirt sleeves and an apron, came upto Mr. Myson and respectfully asked him to step into the publishingoffice. Mr. Myson stepped into the publishing office, and Denry withhim, and they there beheld a small, ragged boy with a bleeding nose anda bundle of _Dailys_ in his wounded hand.

  "Yes," the boy sobbed; "and they said they 'd cut my eyes out and plee[play] marbles wi' 'em, if they cotched me in Crown Square agen." Andhe threw down the papers with a final yell.

  The two directors learnt that the delicate threat had been uttered byfour _Signal_ boys who had objected to any fellow-boys offering anypaper other than the _Signal_ for sale in Crown Square or anywhere else.

  Of course, it was absurd.

  Still, absurd as it was, it continued. The central publishing officesof the _Daily_ at Hanbridge, and its branch offices in the neighbouringtowns, were like military hospitals, and the truth appeared to thedirectors that while the public was panting to buy copies of the_Daily_, the sale of the _Daily_ was being prevented by means of ascandalous conspiracy on the part of _Signal_ boys. For it must beunderstood that in the Five Towns people prefer to catch their newspaperin the street as it flies and cries. The _Signal_ had a vast army ofboys, to whom every year it gave a great fete. Indeed, the _Signal_possessed nearly all the available boys, and assuredly all the mostpugilistic and strongest boys. Mr. Myson had obtained boys only afterpersistent inquiry and demand, and such as he had found were not thefittest, and therefore were unlikely to survive. You would havesupposed that in a district that never ceases to grumble about bad tradeand unemployment, thousands of boys would have been delighted to buy the_Daily_ at fourpence a dozen and sell it at sixpence. But it was notso.

  On the second day the dearth of boys at the offices of the _Daily_ waspainful. There was that magnificent, enterprising newspaper waiting tobe sold, and there was the great enlightened public waiting to buy; andscarcely any business could be done because the _Signal_ boys hadestablished a reign of terror over their puny and upstart rivals!

  The situation was unthinkable.

  Still, unthinkable as it was, it continued. Mr. Myson had thought ofeverything except this. Naturally it had not occurred to him that animmense and serious effort for the general weal was going to be blockedby a gang of tatterdemalions.

  He complained, with dignity, to the _Signal_, and was informed, withdignity, by the _Signal_ that the _Signal_ could not be responsible forthe playful antics of its boys in the streets; that, in short, the FiveTowns was a free country. In the latter proposition Mr. Myson did notconcur.

  After trouble in the persuasion of parents--astonishing how indifferentthe Five Towns' parent was to the loss of blood by his offspring!--acase reached the police-court. At the hearing the _Signal_ gave asolicitor a watching brief, and that solicitor expressed the _Signal's_horror of carnage. The evidence was excessively contradictory, and theStipendiary dismissed the summons with a
good joke. The sole definiteresult was that the boy whose father had ostensibly brought the summonsgot his ear torn within a quarter of an hour of leaving the court. Boyswill be boys.

  Still, the _Daily_ had so little faith in human nature that it could notbelieve that the _Signal_ was not secretly encouraging its boys to beboys. It could not believe that the _Signal_, out of a sincere desirefor fair play and for the highest welfare of the district, wouldwillingly sacrifice nearly half its circulation and a portion of itsadvertisement revenue. And the hurt tone of Mr. Myson's leadingarticles seemed to indicate that in Mr. Myson's opinion his older rival_ought_ to do everything in its power to ruin itself. The _Signal_never spoke of the fight. The _Daily_ gave shocking details of it everyday.

  The struggle trailed on through the weeks.

  Then Denry had one of his ideas. An advertisement was printed in the_Daily_ for two hundred able-bodied men to earn two shillings forworking six hours a day. An address different from the address of the_Daily_ was given. By a ruse Denry procured the insertion of theadvertisement in the _Signal_ also.

  "We must expend our capital on getting the paper on to the streets,"said Denry. "That's evident. We 'll have it sold by men. We 'll soonsee if the _Signal_ ragamuffins will attack _them_. And we won't pay'em by results; we'll pay 'em a fixed wage; that 'll fetch 'em. And acommission, on sales into the bargain. Why! I would n't mind engaging_five_ hundred men. Swamp the streets! That's it! Hang expense. Andwhen we 've done the trick, then we can go back to the boys; they'llhave learnt their lesson."

  And Mr. Myson agreed, and was pleased that Denry was living up to hisreputation.

  The state of the earthenware trade was supposed that summer to be worsethan it had been since 1869, and the grumblings of the unemployed wereprodigious, even seditious. Mr. Myson, therefore, as a measure ofprecaution engaged a couple of policemen to ensure order at the address,and during the hours, named in the advertisement as a rendezvous forrespectable men in search of a well-paid job. Having regard to thethousands of perishing families in the Five Towns, he foresaw a rush anda crush of eager breadwinners. Indeed, the arrangements were elaborate.

  Forty minutes after the advertised time for the opening of the receptionof 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 moremen came. Of the six, three were tipsy, and the other three absolutelydeclined to be seen selling papers in the streets. Two were abusive,one facetious. Mr. Myson did not know his Five Towns; nor did Denry. Aman in the Five Towns, when he can get neither bread nor beer, will keephimself 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 onceto give itself a splendid spectacular advertisement and to reward andenhearten its boys. The _Signal_ meant to liven up the streets of theFive Towns on that great day by means of a display of all the giltchariots of Snape's Circus in the main thoroughfares. Many of the boyswould 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 moreafraid of its young rival than it had pretended to be.

  For, strange to say, after a trying period of hesitation, the _FiveTowns Daily_ was slightly on the upward curve--thanks to Denry. Denrydid not mean to be beaten by the puzzle which the _Daily_ offered to hisintelligence. There the _Daily_ was, full of news, and with quite anencouraging show of advertisements, printed on real paper with realink--and yet it would not "go." Notoriously the _Signal_ earned a netprofit 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 thatsixty quite a third was Denry's money. He could not explain it. Mr.Myson tried to rouse the public by passionately stirring up extremelyurgent matters--such as the smoke-nuisance, the increase of the rates,the park question, German competition, technical education forapprentices; but the public obstinately would not be roused concerningits highest welfare to the point of insisting on a regular supply of the_Daily_. If a mere five thousand souls had positively demanded daily acopy of the _Daily_ and not slept till boys or agents had responded totheir wish, the troubles of the _Daily_ would soon have vanished. Butthis ridiculous public did not seem to care which paper was put into itshand in exchange for its halfpenny so long as the sporting news was putthere. It simply was indifferent. It failed to see the importance tosuch an immense district of having two flourishing and mutually opposingdaily organs. The fundamental boy difficulty remained ever-present.

  And it was the boy difficulty that Denry perseveringly and ingeniouslyattacked, until at length the _Daily_ did indeed possess some sort of abrigade of its own, and the bullying and slaughter in the streets (soamusing to the inhabitants) grew a little less one-sided.

  A week or more before the _Signal's_ anniversary day Denry heard thatthe _Signal_ was secretly afraid lest the _Daily's_ brigade mightaccomplish the marring of its gorgeous procession, and that the _Signal_was ready to do anything to smash the _Daily's_ brigade. He laughed; hesaid he did not mind. About that time hostilities were rather acute;blood was warming, and both papers, in the excitation of rivalry, hadpartially lost the sense of what was due to the dignity of great organs.By chance a tremendous local football match--Knype v. Bursley--fell onthe very Saturday of the procession. The rival arrangements for thereporting of the match were as tremendous as the match itself, andsomehow the match seemed to add keenness to the journalistic struggle,especially as the _Daily_ favoured Bursley and the _Signal_ wastherefore forced to favour Knype.

  By all the laws of hazard there ought to have been a hitch on thathistoric Saturday. Telephone or telegraph ought to have broken down, orrain ought to have made play impossible. But no hitch occurred. And atfive-thirty o'clock of a glorious afternoon in earliest November the_Daily_ went to press with a truly brilliant account of the manner inwhich Bursley (for the first and last time in its history) had defeatedKnype by one goal to none. Mr. Myson was proud. Mr. Myson defied the_Signal_ to beat his descriptive report. As for the _Signal's_procession--well, Mr. Myson and the chief sub-editor of the _Daily_glanced at each other and smiled.

  And a few minutes later the _Daily_ boys were rushing out of thepublishing-room with bundles of papers--assuredly in advance of the_Signal_.

  It was at this juncture that the unexpected began to occur to the_Daily_ boys. The publishing door of the _Daily_ opened into StanwayRents, a narrow alley in a maze of mean streets behind Crown Square. InStanway Rents was a small warehouse in which, according to rumours ofthe afternoon, a free soup kitchen was to be opened. And just beforethe football edition of the _Daily_ came off the Marinoni, itemphatically was opened, and there issued from its inviting gate anodour--not, to be sure, of soup, but of toasted cheese and hot jam--suchan odour as had never before tempted the nostrils of a _Daily_ boy; aunique and omnipotent odour. Several boys (who, I may state frankly,were traitors to the _Daily_ cause, spies and mischief-makers fromelsewhere) raced unhesitatingly in, crying that toasted cheesesandwiches and jam tarts were to be distributed like lightning to allauthentic newspaper lads.

  The entire gang followed--scores, over a hundred--inwardly expecting toemerge instantly with teeth fully employed, followed like sheep unto afold.

  And the gate was shut.

  Toasted cheese and hot jammy pastry were faithfully served to the raggedhost--but with no breathless haste. And when, loaded, the boysstruggled to depart, they were instructed by the kind philanthropist whohad fed them to depart by another exit and they discovered themselves inan enclosed yard of which the double doors were apparently unyielding.And the warehouse door was shut also. And, as the cheese and jamdisappeared, shouts of
fury arose on the air. The yard was so close tothe offices of the _Daily_ that the chimney-pots of those offices couldactually be seen. And yet the shouting brought no answer from the lordsof the _Daily_, congratulating themselves up there on their fine accountof the football match, and on their celerity in going to press, and onthe loyalty of their brigade.

  The _Signal_, it need not be said, disavowed complicity in thisextraordinary entrapping of the _Daily_ brigade by means of an odour.Could it be held responsible for the excesses of its disinterestedsympathisers? ... Still, the appalling trick showed the high temperatureto which blood had risen in the genial battle between great rivalorgans. Persons in the very inmost ring whispered that Denry Machin hadat length been bested on this critically important day.

  IV

  Snape's Circus used to be one of the great shining institutions of NorthStaffordshire, trailing its magnificence on sculptured wheels from townto town, and occupying the dreams of boys from one generation toanother. Its headquarters were at Axe, in the Moorlands, ten miles awayfrom Hanbridge, but the riches of old Snape had chiefly come from theFive Towns. At the time of the struggle between the _Signal_ and the_Daily_ its decline had already begun. The aged proprietor had recentlydied, and the name, and the horses, and the chariots, and the carefullyrepaired tents had been sold to strangers. On the Saturday of theanniversary and the football match (which was also Martinmas Saturday)the circus was set up at Oldcastle, on the edge of the Five Towns, andwas giving its final performances of the season. Even boys will not goto circuses in the middle of a Five Towns' winter. The _Signal_ peoplehad hired the processional portion of Snape's for the late afternoon andearly evening. And the instructions were that the entire _cortege_should be round about the _Signal_ offices, in marching order, not laterthan five o'clock.