“You will be pleased to hear, mater dear, that corn is up twopence a cental, and that the market is buoyant; that's the good of new blood being brought into corn. I would have been lost in medicine. “I have been studying the career of a corn prince, and it has five chapters. He begins a poor boy--from the North of Ireland by preference, but that is not necessary--then he attracts his chiefs attention, who sends him out to America, where even the Yankees can't hold their own with him, and he becomes manager of his firm. His next move is to start in partnership with some young fellow who has money and no brains; by-and-bye he discovers by instinct that corn is going to rise, so he buys it ahead by the cargo, and piles up a gorgeous sum--say one hundred thousand pounds. Afterwards he buys out Emptyhead, and becomes the chief of a big house with lots of juniors, and he ends by being a Bank director and moving resolutions at the Town Hall. “Please don't interrupt, mother, for I have not done yet. Long before the Town Hall level this rising corn man has gone up by stages from the street off Princes Road to an avenue near the Park, and then into the Park, and perhaps into the country, whence he appears as High Sheriff. “One minute more, you impatient mother. A certain person who will pretend to be nearly fifty when the corn man comes into his kingdom, but will remain always at twenty-five exactly, and grow prettier every year, will have a better set of rooms in each new house, and, at last, will have her own carriage, and visit whole streets of poor folk, and have all Liverpool blessing her. This is the complete history of the corn man and his mother, as it will be expounded to after generations of schoolboys by informing and moral philanthropists. What do you think of it?” “I think that you are a brave boy, Jack, and your mother is proud of you and grateful; if it's any reward for you to know this, I can say that the way you have taken your disappointment has been one of my chief comforts in our great sorrow.” “Don't talk as if I were a sort of little tin hero, mater, or else I'll have to leave the room, for I'm nothing of the sort, really. If you only saw me at my desk, or fussing round the offices, or passing the time of day on corn, you would see that I was simply born for business.” “Jack,” said Mrs. Laycock solemnly, “you have not been without faults, I'm thankful to say, for you've been hot-tempered, hot-headed, wilful, and lots of things, but this is the first time you have been deliberately untruthful.” “Mother, with all respect to you, I will not stand this insult,” and so he slipped down on the floor and caressed his mother's hand. “You think that I've no commercial ability. Wait for the event It will be swagger, you bet.”