midday
Many young men would have rested satisfied with so rapid an advancement , and would have devoted themselves to the amusements that are now considered so permissible to youth , but young Harman was made of sterner stuff , and it only spurred him to further efforts . He contrived to save a considerable proportion of his salary for some years , and at the age of twenty-seven he started , in association with a firm of flour millers , the International Bread and Cake Stores , which spread rapidly over the country . They were not in any sense of the word `` International , '' but in a search for inflated and inflating adjectives this word attracted him most , and the success of the enterprise justified his choice . Originally conceived as a syndicated system of baker 's shops running a specially gritty and nutritious line of bread , the Staminal Bread , in addition to the ordinary descriptions , it rapidly developed a catering side , and in a little time there were few centres of clerkly employment in London or the Midlands where an International could not be found supplying the midday scone or poached egg , washed down by a cup of tea , or coffee , or lemonade . It meant hard work for Isaac Harman . It drew lines on his cheeks , sharpened his always rather pointed nose to an extreme efficiency , greyed his hair , and gave an acquired firmness to his rather retreating mouth . All his time was given to the details of this development ; always he was inspecting premises , selecting and dismissing managers , making codes of rules and fines for his growing army of employees , organizing and reorganizing his central offices and his central bakeries , hunting up cheaper and cheaper supplies of eggs and flour , and milk and ham , devising advertisements and agency developments .