ut together, and, therefore, the facts I give about
the "Exposition" may want verification, for my worthy guide kept firing
them into me with the rapidity of a Maxim or a Hotchkiss.

[Illustration: THE WORLD'S FAIR, CHICAGO. A "SPECIAL'S" VISIT.]

"Now here is the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Guess the
largest building ever erected--1,641,223 feet long, 17,894 feet high--"
Down goes the trap on one side, plunging into some excavation, like a
double-harnessed Roman chariot. However, we scrambled up again, but I
had lost the important figure of the width of the building. Now I don't
for a moment wish to imply that my guide was exaggerating, but this
rather reminds me of a story told of an American visiting England, and
his host there one day remarked to him:

"My dear fellow, we are delighted with you here--in fact, you are quite
a favourite; but you will excuse me if I tell you that you possess one
failing pretty general with your countrymen--you do exaggerate so!"

"Guess I kean't help it, but if you'll just kindly give me a kick under
the table when I'm going too far I'll pull up sharp!"

With this agreement they went out to dinner that evening, and among
other topics the conversation turned upon conservatories. Captain de
Vere said that he had a conservatory 200 feet long, but that the Duke of
Orchid had one nearly 1,000 feet long. The American here struck in with:

"I reckon, gentlemen, you're talking about conserva_tor_ies. Now there's
a friend of mine in Amurrca, a private gentleman, who has a
conserva_tor_y 5,000 feet long, 3,000 feet high, and" (kick)--"oh!--2
feet wide!"

But had I heard the figures representing the width of the building, I
don't suppose they would have been in the same absurd proportion as
this, for not all the shin-kicking in the world would have deterred my
entertaining and conversational conductor.

"You must assemble together in your mind's eye all the mighty structures
already existing in the world to form any idea of the magnitude of this
_tre_menjious edifice before you. It is sixteen times as large as St.
Peter's Cathedral at Rome, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral
would nestle together in its ventilating shaft, and the whole of the
armies of Europe could sit down comfortably to dinner in the central
hall. The Tower of London would be lost under one of the staircases, and
fifty Cleopatra's Needles stuck one on top of the other would not
scratch the roof. The