‘_Et tu Brute!_’ Oliver said in spirit to his father’s old friend and servant, who arrived to speak to Oliver of his acknowledged failure, and to suggest Jim’s nephew’s further rise on Oliver Constable’s downfall. Neither did Jim seem to prosper on his heartlessness and vindictiveness. He looked much older and greyer, and his fine, well-cut face was all creased over with the wrinkles which had been just perceptible, here and there, two or three years before. The face had always looked compact, but now it had a contracted appearance, as if Jim had got into a habit of setting his few teeth and drawing his grizzled brows together, by the hour. ‘Master Oliver,’ said Jim hesitatingly, ‘will you not think twice of this resolution?’ ‘I have no intention, Jim,’ said Oliver shortly, as he drummed on the table before him; and then, scorning to make use of a subterfuge, he added, ‘It is not in my power.’ ‘Not though I bring you the earliest information that my nephew ’Arry is also giving up, leastways selling his business here?’ said Jim, leaning halfway across the table in his earnestness. ‘He has got word of a famous opening in London, which is a field as will suit him better,’ said Jim, in a lower tone, sinking back in his chair. Oliver was taken by surprise. He could only say it would be odd if Friarton were left without bakers, except the small fry. But there could be no difficulty in finding a purchaser and successor to such a _thriving_ business as Jim and his nephew had established. Were there no other nephews of Jim’s?—Oliver remembered a whole family of sons, cousins of Harry’s—to take the place of the ambitious fellow who thought Friarton beneath his further attentions, and would, no doubt, die Lord Mayor of London? Oliver had—he could not have told why, unless in the underlying sense of bitterness produced by the contrast with his own experience—put an emphasis on the epithet ‘thriving’ which he had applied to Jim and his nephew’s business. The stress on the word caused Jim to wince. A dull, faded red suffused the old servant’s withered face, and caused positive pain to the quondam master. What right had Oliver to taunt Jim with his success? Was not the old man at liberty to make his methods, in which he saw no harm, succeed to the utmost of his power? While Oliver took himself to task, Jim was informing him, ceremoniously, that the only nephew he had in the baking trade, besides ’Arry, had gone to Australia, ‘and well for him,’ muttered the speaker. ‘But I was thinking, Master Oliver,’ resumed Jim, wistfully, ‘that you might take ’Arry’s business, of which my share would go far to buy up the goodwill, and carry it on instead of the old one here.’ ‘What, Jim! because I have half ruined myself with the one, go on to wholly ruin myself with the other?’ said Oliver, with a forced laugh to hide his perplexity and embarrassment.