Absolute uniformity was thus secured at comparatively little cost. The ingenious process was invented by Mr Perkins,[169] of the firm of Perkins, Bacon & Co. of Fleet Street, who, during the first forty years of the reformed postal system, printed some 95/100ths of our postage stamps, and in that space of time issued nearly 21,000,000,000 of penny adhesives alone.[170] Later, the contract passed into the hands of Messrs De La Rue, who hitherto, but long after 1840, had merely printed stamps of a few higher values than the penny and twopenny issue. In at least one work of fiction, however, the impression is conveyed that the latter firm from the first enjoyed the monopoly of stamp production of all values. About midway in the 'fifties a serious fire broke out on Messrs Perkins & Co.'s premises, and much valuable material was destroyed. Investigation of the salvage showed that barely two days' supply of stamps remained in stock; and some anxiety was felt lest these should become exhausted before fresh ones could be produced, as even a temporary return to prepayment by coin of the realm would by this time have been found irksome. But with characteristic zeal, the firm at once recommenced work, and only a few people were ever aware how perilously near to deadlock the modern postal machine had come. It was after this fire that the crimson hue of the penny adhesive was altered to a sort of brick-red. The change of colour—one of several such changes exhibited by the red stamp—is duly recorded in Messrs Stanley Gibbon & Co.'s catalogue, though the probably long-forgotten accident with which it would seem to be connected is not mentioned. The reasons for the four months' long delay in the issue of the stamps were twofold. They were, first, the more or less open hostility of the Post officials to both reform and reformer, which, as has been stated, caused all sorts of hindrances to be strewn in the path of progress; and, secondly, the apprehension still felt by the Government that the public would not take kindly to prepayment. The stamps ought, of course, to have been issued in time to be used by the 10th January 1840, when the new system came into force. When they were at last forthcoming, none were forwarded to the receiving offices till complaint was made. The fault was then found to lie with the wording of the Treasury letter giving the requisite directions. Later, another difficulty arose. The Stamp Office persisted in issuing the stamped covers in entire sheets as they were printed, and the Post Office refused to supply them uncut to the receivers. Three days alone were wasted over this wrangle. A week later the Post Office, which had formally undertaken the distribution of the covers, discovered that such work was beyond its powers. For a month after the first issue of the stamps the receiving offices remained unsupplied.