al he might be.

He became a Bull and bought.

He did not endeavour to corner wheat in the manner of the heroes of the
stories, for wheat was controlled; he bought, instead, fifty thousand
bushels of oats. A fair deal, and he told those about him with a smile
that he was going to make several thousand dollars out of Winnipeg in a
very few moments.

An onlooker pointed to the blackboard, and cried:

"What about that? Oats are falling."

But the broker was a wise man. He had avoided a royal "crash." He had
already sold at the same price, 83 1/2, and the Prince had accomplished
what is called a "cross trade." That is he had squared the deal and
only lost his commission.

While he stood in that frantic pit of whirling voices something of the
vast transactions of the Grain Exchange was explained to him. It is
the biggest centre for the receipt and sale of wheat directly off the
land in the world. It handles grain by the million bushels. In the
course of a day, so swift and thorough are its transactions, it can
manipulate deals aggregating anything up to 150,000,000 bushels.

When these details had been put before him, the gong was again struck,
and silence came magically.

Unseen by most in that pack of men on the steps the Prince was heard to
say that he had come to the conclusion that to master the intricacies
of the Exchange was a science rather beyond his grasp just then. He
hoped that his trip westward would give him a more intimate knowledge
of the facts about grain, and when he came back, as he hoped he would,
he might have it in him to do something better than a "cross trade."

From the pit the lift took him aloft again to the big sampling and
classifying room on the tenth floor of the building. The long tables
of this room were littered with small bags of grain, and with grain in
piles undergoing tests. The floor was strewn with spilled wheat and
oats and corn. Here he was shown how grain, carried to Winnipeg in the
long trucks, was sampled and brought to this room in bags. Here it was
classified by experts, who, by touch, taste and smell, could gauge its
quality unerringly.

It is the perfection of a system for handling grain in the raw mass.
The buyer never sees the grain he purchases. The classification of the
Exchange is so reliable that he accepts its certificates of quality and
weight and buys on paper alone.

Nor are the dealers ever delayed by this wonderfully working
organization