Page:The council of seven.djvu/257

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was set in grim earnest. The first manifestation of this fact appeared in the sky.

On the night of the procession by torchlight, just as the admired Sir Augustus Bimley was about to address the Charwomen of England from the plinth of John Bright's statue, something went suddenly wrong with that huge illuminated sky sign—Endor Must Go—which made Market Square as bright as day.

The Lord Bishop of Blackhampton was in the middle of his prayer when the noble illumination which the prelate had referred to as a light in a great darkness began to fizzle. By the time the prayer was at an end the light had gone out.

A feeling of anticlimax smote the gathering when Sir Augustus Bimley rose to address it. Endor Must Go had been taken at its word. The delegates to the Charwoman's Conference felt a sense of desolation, which the fervent language they now heard could not remove. Moreover, Britain's Best, etc., was fairly under way, his eyes in a fine frenzy rolling, when suddenly there happened a strange thing.

The U. P. masterpiece in sky signs had not been merely snuffed out; it had been eclipsed. But in a literal sense it was now outshone. From above the City Hall in gigantic letters there flamed suddenly forth across Market Square the amazing legend:


JOHN ENDOR IS JANNOCK