‘But you see I wasn’t; and I believe it would have been next to an impossibility to teach me,’ said Oliver, stopping on the instant, contritely. He would not willingly have hurt a fly if he could have avoided it, though he was compelled to wound Fan to the quick. Happily for him, he could not sound the depths of her prejudices, or altogether realise the pain he was inflicting. But he struggled not to chaff her any more, since she was so thin-skinned and so much vexed by his determination. He reverted to general illustrations of humbugs. ‘I will say nothing of the curious favour which is shown to brewers in these days; but though I don’t go in for total abstinence, and can sing out for a glass of beer with an easy conscience, it seems to me, in the name of morality, the baker ought to be esteemed the better tradesman of the two. Let me refer further to the odd fact that a squireen, or duke, or a prince, with an agricultural hobby may farm his own land, grow corn, and fatten beeves, without coming under the ban of a spurious gentility—odious word, Fan! But society holds that when the same corn comes to be ground into flour and kneaded into bread, and the same cattle to be slaughtered and cut into beef—very essential processes for the welfare of the million, the men who take the processes in hand and pledge themselves to bring them to a fair issue, are justly to lose all social status, and sink in the scale to depths of vulgarity lower than the brutality of the most stupid, ignorant, ragged, dirty lout! (Of course you understand I am pointing my moral by an extreme instance of the working man.) Now, I maintain that if we had—in addition to the great farming landowner, and to that extraordinary exception in position to other tradesmen, the great brewer—the great baker, butcher——’ ‘Fishmonger and greengrocer,’ chimed in Fan, mockingly. ‘Why not?’ Oliver accepted the addition undauntedly. ‘Men who should endow the world with excellent bread, wholesome meat, fresh fish—at reasonable prices, do you see? for the credit of their trades and the good of humanity—not merely that the baker and his fellow-tradesmen might make haste to grow rich and cut the shop, rear their sons for professions, and marry their daughters to professional men as the first step to a higher social grade—they would deserve to be ranked as public benefactors. I should not wonder,’ declared Oliver, breaking out into fun again, ‘though I had a statue erected to me one day for leading the van in the beneficent movement. Most likely I shan’t be there to see. It won’t be, I dare say, till I’m “Old Constable” to a third or fourth generation. But if the world is only a little quicker in its appreciation and gratitude than it is wont to be, as you are my junior by a few years, it is just on the cards, if you live to be ninety-nine, Fannikin, you may behold the tribute. Won’t it be glorious! Won’t you be proud of me then?’