For it
must be understood that in the Five Towns people prefer to catch their
newspaper in the street as it flies and cries. The _Signal_ had a
vast army of boys, to whom every year it gave a great _fete_.
Indeed, the _Signal_ possessed nearly all the available boys, and
assuredly all the most pugilistic and strongest boys. Mr Myson had
obtained boys only after persistent inquiry and demand, and such as he
had found were not the fittest, and therefore were unlikely to survive.
You would have supposed that in a district that never ceases to grumble
about bad trade and unemployment, thousands of boys would have been
delighted to buy the _Daily_ at fourpence a dozen and sell it at
sixpence. But it was not so.
On the second day the dearth of boys at the offices of the _Daily_
was painful. There was that magnificent, enterprising newspaper waiting
to be sold, and there was the great enlightened public waiting to buy;
and scarcely any business could be done because the _Signal_ boys
had established a reign of terror over their puny and upstart rivals!
The situation was unthinkable.
Still, unthinkable as it was, it continued.
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