“For my part,” added the secretary, “I believe when I was persuaded into having anything to do with the Protector, that I was both; and I can very truthfully say, if I could only get back the money I have lost by this confounded Company, I would cut the whole concern to-morrow. Meantime, sir, if you have any complaint to make of my conduct, I would thank you to bring it under the notice of the board. I am compelled to bear bullying once a week, but I will not endure it oftener.”
Upon this, General Sinclair, boiling over with rage, inquired if he (Mr. Dudley) knew to whom he was speaking?
“Yes,” Arthur answered, “I do; to that one of the directors of the Protector Bread and Flour Company, Limited, who took my place on the board when I resigned; and, with all my heart and soul, I wish I had never heard of the Protector, nor advanced a penny-piece for the purpose of bringing it before the public.”
And every word that Arthur said, he meant. He was sick and weary of his thankless office; of the preparation of unsatisfactory reports; of conversations with disheartened shareholders; of entering minutes of depressing proceedings.
Adversity, as has been stated, had not proved beneficial to the tempers of his directors, and stormy meetings were now the rule instead of the exception. Every man looked angrily on his neighbour; every orator believed the last speaker, and the speakers who had preceded him, wrong—practically and theoretically, root and branch; every creature had his own pet plan for restoring public confidence in the Company, and was wont to return home full of dismal forebodings, of doleful prophecies.
Mr. Black alone, perhaps, preserved his equanimity, and assured his colleagues, that, if they would only have patience, the tide must turn. For his part, he said, he had seen so many ebbs and flows, that he did not care a snap of the fingers for any temporary depression. People had not ceased to eat bread; and, although they might for a time have changed their baker, still the best article must secure custom in the long run. He vehemently protested against the closing of shops, and the reduction of vans. “Better to have given the bread to the nearest charity,” he said, “than to have adopted such a course. Penny wise and pound foolish, he declared the policy adopted had been. He had advised putting on steam, instead of reducing the pressure, and reminded his fellow-directors of the fact; but of course,” he added, “they knew best; their experience, no doubt, was greater than his; there was no knowing, indeed, what the best plan to pursue might be, till they found out which plan led to fortune or failure.” For his part, however, he thought it was always judicious in business, as at whist, when doubtful to play a trump. He would have played a trump, and if the game were to prove a losing one, he would, at all events, have lost with éclat; but, as he said before, he deferred to the superior wisdom of his colleagues, and only trusted their wisdom might in the long run prove profitable to all parties interested.
But the united wisdom of the directors of the Protector did not prove profitable, and every board-day more temper was exhibited, till at length the papers began to take the matter up, and the very journals who had written leaders concerning the philanthropic and admirable construction of the Company, now found spare corners which they filled up with paragraphs, headed, “The Protector Bread Company again;” or with letters from indignant shareholders, who could not understand the gross mismanagement which must exist somewhere in a company, the directors of which declared a dividend of fifteen per cent. per annum at the first half-yearly meeting, and found their profits during the second six months only enabled them to pay with difficulty two and a half per cent.! Truth was, as Mr. Black—who practically knew a vast deal more about the mind of the British public than the rest of the directors were likely ever to evolve out of their internal consciousness—declared, the very honesty of the board swamped the Company, or, at least, hastened its extinction. No subterfuges; no cooking of accounts; no hints to the secretary, that at the moderate expense of a bottle of good ink, a few quires of paper, and a hundred of pens, things might be made to look as pleasant as any body of shareholders need desire to see them! it was all as though a doctor, being called in to see a bad case, were to lay the peril of his position before the patient—to exhibit to him, in its appalling nakedness, the poor chance he had of recovery.
“Enough to kill the man at once!” remarked the promoter to Mr. Robert Crossenham; “and enough to kill a company, if it had as many lives as a cat. What the devil do we want with directors or any board? If they would only find the money, I swear I’d find the brains. It is such a mistake, having so many masters. Well, if the ‘Protector’ goes smash, I shall always say, one of the finest pots of broth ever a man brought to boiling-point was spoiled by too many cooks having a hand in dishing it.”
As for Mr. Stewart, he even, had his fits of irritability—his hours when he came to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and treated Arthur to his opinions.
He said, he felt perfectly confident there was something radically wrong about the Company, and he seemed to imagine Arthur could help him to discover where the wrong existed, if the secretary would only set his brains to work.