‘I believe you, Jim,’ said Oliver gravely, ‘and I, for my part, am so sorry to lose you that you may guess how much the principles are to me which compel such a sacrifice.’ Jim shrugged his shoulders and turned away. Constable’s baking business without Jim Hull was sure to be crippled for a time, but there were other kinds of crippling going on, and a worse mess for Oliver to get into. Oliver, in his consciousness of his own shortcomings, and his passion for independence and individuality, was not so much inclined to insist on punctuality and method in his subordinates as most new brooms show themselves. But he happened to remark that what rules and penalties were imposed, had gradually come to be inflicted chiefly on the younger journeymen and apprentices. The elder and more skilled bakers took upon them, in the right of their value to Oliver and the difficulty of replacing them on an emergency, to infringe the orders and do their work earlier or later, faster or slower, according to their convenience and inclination, putting about and causing some slight injury to the subordinates, and creating a certain amount of disorder in the establishment. In place of these experts presenting a good example to their juniors, the latter were stimulated in the reverse direction, and prompted to acquire such qualities as might enable them in their turn to shirk obligations and throw the weight of drudgery and discipline on their weaker, more untrained fellows. Oliver was determined this should not be. He heard that the baker Webster was conspicuous at this game, that he rarely kept his time, that he compressed his kneading into the briefest operation compatible with success, that he set his sponge at the latest date, and was guilty of the same recklessness in placing his batch in the oven, so that he imperilled his whole night and morning’s work, though he might escape by the skin of the teeth from reducing it—either to a sodden mass or a cinder, as the oven fire served. Webster was a man given over to a variety of conflicting interests and distractions, rather than the victim of one vice; he was unsettled more than dissipated, still he appeared in the bakehouse occasionally the worse for drink. Oliver set himself to convict his servant—in name, in one of his misdemeanours, and going into the bakehouse early one morning when the bakers were about to subject the risen dough to the second kneading, he found Webster’s place vacant; a friend had contrived to go through the first process for Webster’s batch as well as for his own, but was halting ere he proceeded to complete the performance. Oliver remarked aloud that Webster was absent from his work, and ordered that his batch should be worked up and put into the oven, without waiting for his arrival or asking his permission, while Jim Hull, who was still in office, should challenge the defender for non-attendance.