'Ah,' he said, calmly. 'How did it happen?'
'I've just had a cable from Chicago, from your grand-pop. He's been trying to corner wheat. He always was an impulsive old gazook.'
'But surely,' said Clarence, a dim recollection of something he had heard or read somewhere coming to him, 'isn't cornering wheat a rather profitable process?'
'Sure,' said his mother. 'Sure it is. I guess dad's try at cornering wheat was about the most profitable thing that ever happened—to the other fellows. It seems like they got busy and clubbed fifty-seven varieties of Hades out of your old grand-pop. He's got to give up a lot of his expensive habits, and one of them is sending money to us. That's how it is.'
'And on top of that, mind you,' moaned Lord Runnymede, 'I lose my little veto. It's bitter—bitter.'
Clarence lit a cigarette and drew at it thoughtfully. 'I don't see how we're going to manage on twelve thousand quid a year,' he said.
His mother crisply revised his pronouns.
'We aren't,' she said. 'You've got to get out and hustle.'
Clarence looked at her blankly.
'Me?'