"Something to eat, of course! Tom, you're hopeless when it comes to the finer things of life.

You ought to have been born in a pen, close to a well-filled trough.

Corn, indeed!" "This country would probably be bankrupt if there were no corn crop, and you'd be digging hard for a living, instead of being a lazy schoolboy," retorted Reade, with an indulgent smile.

"Let me see; how many hundred million dollars did Old Dut tell us the annual corn crop brings in wealth to this country ?" All of the other boys, save Dave, glanced at Tom, but all shook their heads.

Statistics do not mix well in a Grammar School boy's head.
"Oh, well, it was a lot of money, anyway," Tom pursued his subject.
"I wouldn't mind having all the money that the American corn crop brings." "So you could buy the fanciest kinds of food, I suppose ?" jeered Dave Darrin.
"Never mind, Darry; if I had a lot of money I'd buy you the biggest and softest mattress I could find, so that you'd have nothing to do but lie off by yourself, look up at the green leaves and dream your summers away.