a halfpenny each, and enfolded
the Turkish delight therein, and handed it to you with a smack.
And all the fair-grounds were carpeted with draggled and muddy
_Signals_. People were up to the ankles in _Signals_.
The affair was the talk of Sunday. Few matters in the Five Towns have
raised more gossip than did that enormous escapade which Denry invented
and conducted. The moral damage to the _Signal_ was held to
approach the disastrous. And now not the possibility but the probability
of law-suits was incessantly discussed.
On the Monday both papers were bought with anxiety. Everybody was
frothing to know what the respective editors would say.
But in neither sheet was there a single word as to the affair. Both had
determined to be discreet; both were afraid. The _Signal_ feared
lest it might not, if the pinch came, be able to prove its innocence of
the crime of luring boys into confinement by means of toasted cheese and
hot jam. The _Signal_ had also to consider its seriously damaged
dignity; for such wounds silence is the best dressing. The _Daily_
was comprehensively afraid. It had practically driven its gilded
chariots through the entire Decalogue.
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