Hence it
happened that Alderman Keats went as far as Crewe specially to buy blank
cartridge, and he drowned the ball cartridge secretly in the Birches
Pond. To such lengths may a timid man be driven in order to preserve and
foster the renown of being a dog of the old sort. All kinds of persons
used to hear the barking of the alderman's revolver in his stable-yard,
and the cumulative effect of these noises wore down calumny and
incredulity. And, of course, having once begun to practise, the alderman
could not decently cease. The absurd situation endured. And a coral reef
of ball cartridges might have appeared on the surface of Birches Pond
had it not been for the visit (at enormous expense) of Hagentodt's ten
tigers to the Hanbridge Empire.
This visit, epoch-making in the history of music-hall enterprise in the
Five Towns, coincided with the annual venison feast of a society known
as Ye Ancient Corporation of Hanbridge, which society had no connection
whatever with the real rate-levying corporation, but was a piece of
elaborate machinery for dinner-eating. Alderman Keats, naturally, was
prominent in the affair of the venison feast.
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