ssary,' declared Smug, getting up quickly. 'I'll
show you the place, and the man; and then I must be looking for my
young men again.'

I had not looked for this conclusion, but as the rustic arose I closed
my notebook and made ready to follow them. I was all agog to see this
amiable dealer in brand-new Government notes.

As the countryman turned toward his guide, the small sharp-faced
woman, who had eyed us so long and often from her bench almost
opposite, arose with a movement suggestive of steel springs, and made
her way toward us, waving her umbrella to attract attention. I moved
rapidly aside, in anticipation of the sweeping gesture of arm and
umbrella, which dislodged a tall man's hat and sent it rolling to the
feet of a frisky maiden, from whence it was rescued by Smug, who
restored it, with a placating word, and so averted an unpleasantness.
Meanwhile the woman had reached her husband's side, and a few quick
words had passed between the two. Then a gesture, and another word or
two, evidently meant for an introduction, brought the smug stranger
to her notice, and the three turned their faces toward the Plaisance;
but not until I had heard her say to her better-half as she clung to
his arm, while Smug opened a way ahead, 'I tell you he's a confidence
man, and I know it. I've been a-watchin' him!'

Following the three at a little distance, and discreetly, I smiled at
the woman's rustic cleverness; and never did man smile more
mistakenly.

CHAPTER II.

'I TOLD MY TALE OF WOE.'

I followed the trio as they went rapidly past the Terminal Station,
and halted, laughing inwardly, while Mr. Smug, as I had mentally named
the man whose game I was watching so intently, stood fidgeting before
the great golden door of the Transportation Building waiting for the
sharp-eyed woman to exhaust her ecstasies, and for her more stolid
husband to close his wide-opened mouth and remember his errand to
Midway Plaisance.

As for myself, I could have gazed at this marvel of doorways and have
forgotten all else; and I was not sorry that the small farmeress had a
will of her own, and that this will elected to stay.

Oh, that superb eastern facade! Never before has its like been seen.
Never in such a setting and in such gigantic proportions will we see
it again.

But we left it at last and made a slow and halting progress past
Horticultural Hall on one side and the sunlit lagoon on the other; and
here, overcome by the gran