Walking down Gray’s Inn Lane, the Squire certainly was a proof of the truth of his own quotation. As a master baker, singly, he would have felt very much ashamed of his trade, and vexed by any public recognition of it. As a master baker, associated with other gentlemen and noblemen also bakers, Squire Dudley conceived himself a person of importance, one of a body of philanthropists, who, “hearing the cry of the people for bread, pure bread, sweet, wholesome, nutritious bread, at a moderate price, had determined on forming themselves into a Company which, under the name of the ‘Protector,’ should guard alike the rights of producer and consumer—supply the public with the best bread at the lowest remunerative prices—ensure to the shareholders a fair and certain return for capital—do away with unwholesome, ill-ventilated, badly-constructed, insufficient and uncleanly bakehouses, and render the trade wholesome and remunerative to the employés connected with it, instead of permitting it to remain, as hitherto, a blot on nineteenth century civilization—one of the most enervating, pestiferous, dangerous trades which could be conceived.”—_Vide_ Prospectus. This is one of the many beauties of a Limited Liability Company: a man can have all the excitement, profit, and pleasure of trade, without any of its unpleasantness. If he be one of the directors on the board of, say “The Private Dwelling Chimney-Sweeping Association,” he still remains a gentleman. In the Bankruptcy Court, indeed, where some singular anomalies are still permitted to exist, he might be styled a dealer and chapman; but in West End drawing-rooms his standing is above suspicion. He is a wise individual who, despising trade, is still not above making use of it; who, knowing nothing of business, would nevertheless go and reap of the corn which his hand neither planted nor watered; he can do, as Squire Dudley wished to do, “gather where he has not strawed,” and march in and out of City offices as though the whole of the Lord Mayor’s kingdom from Ludgate to the Tower, and from Moorgate to London Bridge, belonged to him. It was with this feeling Arthur Dudley, spite of his anxieties, entered the temporary offices in Dowgate Hill, where he was greeted by Mr. Black with an uproarious joviality.