And so every one believed. In all directions the Company’s vans were to be encountered conveying bread to the far-away depôts, or else returning empty from the extremest ends of London. The bread was good; the directors—greatly to the disgust of their housekeepers and cooks, who were thus cheated out of a legitimate perquisite in the shape of commission—ate of the staff of life kneaded at their own bakeries, and were satisfied. If an inferior batch were produced, woe to the master baker, on whom, straight away, General Sinclair poured his vials of wrath. If the flour were sour, as servants frequently declared it to be, Mr. Bailey Crossenham’s ears tingled for a week. Never was a company better managed; never a staff more rigidly superintended. Did Linnor, at the most easterly point of London, running short of bread, borrow a few loaves from his neighbour, Mr. Bickley, and supply them as the genuine product of the Protector, Limited, down came a note from the Secretary’s office, informing Mr. Linnor, by “order of the board,” that if such dereliction from the paths of duty occurred again, he, Mr. Linnor, would forthwith be dismissed from the responsible position which he held. Neither for those brilliant creatures, dressed in orange and green, who conveyed the bread from Stangate to all parts of the metropolis, was there such a thing as liberty. Their carts were numbered, and if, on the hottest day in summer, they stopped at the “Spotted Stag,” in Mile End Road, or the “White Hart,” in Newington, or the “Greyhound,” in Fulham, or any other favourite house of call, for a pot of beer, 16, or 48, or 33, or 27, was had up the same evening before the yard superintendent, and “cautioned” for all the world—so the men themselves said—as if the “governor was a beak.” If, after this caution, any one still preferred ale to employment, he was paid his wages and discharged on the spot. Altogether, it was a very perfectly-managed Company, and quite a credit to its directors. Great people, when the periodical philanthropic fit attacked their ranks, were not above driving over to Stangate, and inspecting the works; and, on the occasion of such visits, the _Times_ would come out with a leader, concerning pure bread and the adulteration of food, which always sent the shares up on the Stock Exchange, and made the aristocracy feel that they had conferred vast benefits on the labouring classes.