“I have not much time to spare this afternoon, for I have letters to write, and lots of people to see; but as I perceive you are dissatisfied, Dudley, I’ll tell you what I’ll do: transfer to you a couple of hundred of my shares in the ‘Protector,’ paid up. That’s two thousand pounds, at the worst; and if I see I can do anything more for you, I will. Don’t be in too great a hurry, old fellow. That is the worst of all you country people—you think a fortune is to be made just in a minute. I’ll stand by you, if you stand by me. I swear it to you, Dudley; there’s my hand upon it. Now, do not—do not, I entreat of you, go and make yourself and that dear wife of yours uncomfortable. If you have to raise a few thousands on Berrie Down, what matter? Did Berrie Down ever do anything for you that you should do anything for it? Stick to the Protector and Allan Stewart—that’s my advice; and when you are in any difficulty come to me—that is my advice also. Now, good-bye—ta-ta—God bless you, Dudley!” And thus exit Squire Dudley without speaking a word he had intended, but with a very strong impression on his mind that Mr. Black, having been making free with the contents of a certain bottle, labelled “Martell,” ordinarily concealed in the recesses of one of Tann’s “Reliance” safes, must, therefore, have spoken the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. As though people did not tell worse fibs when they are drunk than when they are sober, more especially in London—as though “_In vino veritas_” were not an exploded creed with the rising generation, many of whom do not speak truth either in their cups or out of them. CHAPTER II. GREAT SUCCESSES. While the events I have related were influencing, more or less, the Dudley family history, the “Protector Flour and Bread Company” was succeeding to an extent which it is given to few companies in our time to equal. If a person be sufficiently interested in the prices of miscellaneous companies’ shares, to run his eye down a list of, say, a hundred and fifty of the new Limited Liabilities, he will be surprised to find how few out of the number are quoted as being at par, to say nothing of at a premium. Dis., dis., dis., is the encouraging legend attached to one after another; but it was not thus with the Protector—steadily its shares went up. It grew to be considered a good investment. The ten pound shares (two pounds paid) were eagerly sought after; and, had an intending investor gone, about that period, to any broker, and expressed his desire of purchasing into the Protector Bread Company, he would have been advised he was acting wisely—that the shares were very good property indeed.