For a long time Mr. Samuel Ridley, butler and confidential valet to the Right Honourable John James Baron Todmorden, was in a state of the greatest despair and gloom about his only son, the little John James,—a sickly and almost deformed child “of whom there was no making nothink,” as Mr. Ridley said. His figure precluded him from following his father’s profession, and waiting upon the British nobility, who naturally require large and handsome men to skip up behind their rolling carriages, and hand their plates at dinner. When John James was six years old his father remarked, with tears in his eyes, he wasn’t higher than a plate-basket. The boys jeered at him in the streets—some whopped him, spite of his diminutive size. At school he made but little progress. He was always sickly and dirty, and timid and crying, whimpering in the kitchen away from his mother; who, though she loved him, took Mr. Ridley’s view of his character, and thought him little better than an idiot until such time as little Miss Cann took him in hand, when at length there was some hope of him. “Half-witted, you great stupid big man,” says Miss Cann, who had a fine spirit of her own. “That boy half-witted! He has got more wit in his little finger than you have in all your great person! You are a very good man, Ridley, very good-natured I’m sure, and bear with the teasing of a waspish old woman: but you are not the wisest of mankind. Tut, tut, don’t tell me. You know you spell out the words when you read the newspaper still, and what would your bills look like if I did not write them in my nice little hand? I tell you that boy is a genius. I tell you that one day the world will hear of him. His heart is made of pure gold. You think that all the wit belongs to the big people. Look at me, you great tall man! Am I not a hundred times cleverer than you are? Yes, and John James is worth a thousand such insignificant little chits as I am; and he is as tall as me too, sir. Do you hear that! One day I am determined he shall dine at Lord Todmorden’s table, and he shall get the prize at the Royal Academy, and be famous, sir—famous!” “Well, Miss C., I wish he may get it; that’s all I say,” answers Mr. Ridley. “The poor fellow does no harm, that I acknowledge; but _I_ never see the good he was up to yet. I wish he’d begin it; I _du_ wish he would now.” And the honest gentleman relapses into the study of his paper.