"bulls and bears in a hard struggle over wheat." uncle theodore read the great headline from his evening paper.

"wild scenes prevailed to-day at the board of trade," he continued, "when john smith began taking in his profits on wheat. it is estimated that he made a profit of over three hundred thousand in less than half an hour. altogether he has cleared more than five millions on his wheat deal, and that within six months."

"dear me! dear me!" cried grandmother, "and people dying for want of bread!"

"well," returned uncle theodore, "smith is only a highly sensitive product of our so-called civilisation; the civilisation we are rushing and straining to carry to the quiet, unassuming people whom we call heathen. they have no millionaires, made so at the expense of their brothers. when we teach them all the graft, lynching, homicide, enormities of trusts, railroads, new religions, and quack remedies, we shall have them civilised."

"christianity has to blush for christendom," sighed grandmother.

i have been asking grandmother since how bulls and bears could struggle over wheat; and she tells me that the strugglers are not four-footed beasts at all, but men. i see how it is, bulls and bears are both cantankerous animals, which, if they come in conflict about anything, are sure to have a fight; and men who have given evidence of like natures have been called after those fierce animals. it must be that way. i have asked grandmother whether that is not the way they came by their names, and she said she supposed it must be.