five o'clock
On the Saturday of the anniversary and the football match -LRB- which was also Martinmas Saturday -RRB- the circus was set up at Oldcastle , on the edge of the Five Towns , and was giving its final performances of the season . 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 _ cortège _ 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 .