Oliver was fit to go to the bakehouse, and, in the sweat of his brow, deliver his speech a second time—in this instance to his bakers. They were a set of men both young and middle-aged, some portly, some lean, all more or less yellow rather than white-skinned—like the millers, for these were not the lads who spent a large part of their day in the open air distributing the bread. These were journeymen who had not their time at their own disposal, and even if they had, would not, unless in perhaps one exceptional case, have devoted their leisure with the enthusiasm of genius to the pursuit of any branch of natural history, taking the student out into the fields and woods like the famous baker whose book was the iron-bound coast and the bleak moors of Caithness. The sallow complexions of the bakers were brought out in relief by their white caps as they stood with their shirt sleeves rolled up to their elbows. The men had left their baking boards for the day, but still had to keep a vigilant eye on the ovens in the background. As the party came forward to listen to the new owner of the business, they fell naturally into the attitude of a deputation, with one man representing their leader pushed well into the foreground, who instinctively caught up his apron under his left arm as a sign in character. But he was not Jim Hull. Jim Hull was in a white suit like the rest. But his suit was conspicuously shrunk at the wrists and ankles as if he had grown away from the original fit in his growing days and yet had adhered to the measurement in anticipation of the time when he should begin to grow down, not up, to bend nearer the earth instead of raising his head high above it. Jim stood a little apart from the group of bakers and their future master, as Oliver addressed his views to his workmen. Contrary to Oliver’s anticipations, Jim preserved at least the attitude of neutrality in the encounter. Jim Hull was an elderly man with a compact face, as if his rather neat and regular features had been compressed so as to take up the least room. He had a remarkably clear, keen eye under the grizzled hair which hung low on his square forehead, for a man approaching threescore. He had been a faithful servant in the Constables’ service from youth to approaching age. He was not without a kind of feudal sentiment both to the family and the business. It gave him a certain amount of gratification that they should still remain united—that Master Oliver had not cut the whole concern and turned his back on it as if it were a disgrace. On the other hand, Jim had his own deeply rooted prejudices and his own schemes, and he was capable, as his former master had foreseen, of becoming factious and troublesome if he were thwarted in his opinions, and mortified in his conceit.