With the exception of another abrupt sentence, ‘I’ll swallow all your stipulations, and stick to you like a vice, now, Master Oliver, never fear,’ it was all the admission Jim Hull ever made to Oliver of having found himself the wrong man in the wrong place. But it was enough to recall to Oliver’s mind stories he had heard, only half believed and never repeated, of the sort of bread which the new business had gone on to sell in Friarton. A young doctor, who had taken upon himself the office of unpaid analyst in defence of an ungrateful public, had pronounced the bread largely and most perniciously adulterated. ’Arry had advanced a long way before his sickened and horrified uncle in courses which Jim had found himself utterly unable to restrain to mild, half-openly-confessed, traditional trade liberties. London was indeed a fitter field for ’Arry’s genius. The day has long gone by when the outbreak of deadly epidemics aroused the frantic outcry of poisoned wells and poisoned loaves. But are the water and the bread provided for the people really pure and wholesome? Has the time not come for the old charge to be revived in more measured and reasonable tones, without any thought of vengeance on sins which are those of ignorance—however wilful—sloth, and haste to make rich, not of deliberate conspiracy and barbarous treachery against human health and life? ‘But, Jim, though you consent to bear with my fads, I am afraid the Friarton people will still find them insupportable. They will still clamour for bread of chalky whiteness, varying in size as well as in shape. I have wearied them out with my efforts to be honest and do them good against their will.’ ‘No, you haven’t,’ said Jim decisively. ‘No one will wag a finger against your bread. They have come to know better. Bless you! they are ready to swallow wholesale any stuff you may offer them.’ Oliver stared, then thinking Jim was making another covert allusion to his nephew’s tolerably extensive experiments on the palates and digestive organs of his customers, Oliver delicately waived the point in discussion. Oliver Constable and Jim Hull talked for some time on the practicability of Oliver’s stepping into a vigorous business in place of laying down an exhausted trade. The longer they talked, the more Oliver became satisfied of the possibility and advisability of the proceeding—that the career he had proposed for himself might not be cut short, and that he might have the chance of rising like a phœnix from its ashes. The last thing which vexed Oliver was that Jim pressed him to go in for the new premises—reared by Jim and his nephew—which were in full working order, rather than transfer their business to the Constables’ bakehouse and shop, which had latterly been only half used.