By all the laws of hazard there ought to have been a hitch on that
historic Saturday. Telephone or telegraph ought to have broken down, or
rain ought to have made play impossible, but no hitch occurred. And at
five-thirty o'clock of a glorious afternoon in earliest November the
_Daily_ went to press with a truly brilliant account of the manner
in which Bursley (for the first and last time in its history) had
defeated Knype 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 the
publishing 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
Stanway Rents, a narrow alley in a maze of mean streets behind Crown
Square. In Stanway Rents was a small warehouse in which, according to
rumours of the afternoon, a free soup kitchen was to be opened. And just
before the football edition of the _Daily_ came off the Marinoni,
it emphatically was opened, and there issued from its inviting gate an
odour--not, to be sure, of soup, but of toasted cheese and hot jam--such
an odour as had never before tempted the nostrils of a _Daily_ boy;
a unique and omnipotent odour.
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