Even boys
will not go to circuses in the middle of a Five Towns' winter. The
_Signal_ people had hired the processional portion of Snape's for
the late afternoon and early evening. And the instructions were that the
entire _cortege_ should be round about the _Signal_ offices,
in marching order, not later than five o'clock.
But at four o'clock several gentlemen with rosettes in their
button-holes and _Signal_ posters in their hands arrived important
and panting at the fair-ground at Oldcastle, and announced that the
programme had been altered at the last moment, in order to defeat
certain feared machinations of the unscrupulous _Daily_. The
cavalcade was to be split into three groups, one of which, the chief,
was to enter Hanbridge by a "back road," and the other two were to go to
Bursley and Longshaw respectively. In this manner the forces of
advertisement would be distributed, and the chief parts of the district
equally honoured.
The special linen banners, pennons, and ribbons--bearing the words--
"_SIGNAL:_ THIRTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY," &c.
had already been hung and planted and draped about the gilded summits of
the chariots.
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