Why! I wouldn't mind engaging
_five_ hundred men. Swamp the streets! That's it! Hang expense. And
when we've done the trick, then we can go back to the boys; they'll have
learnt their lesson."
And Mr Myson agreed and was pleased that Denry was living up to his
reputation.
The state of the earthenware trade was supposed that summer 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.
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