building cost fifty million six hundred and
eighty-four thousand two hundred dollars seventy-five cents, and----" On
dashed the horses in their wild career.

Down we went, I thought into the bed of Lake Michigan, but in an instant
we were up again, my hat in one direction and my stick in another, and I
was well shaken before being taken to the next building.

"Say, Mr. Furniss, the roads are not complete yet, but you mustn't mind
these little ups and downs. Guess these horses would pull through
anything--brought 'em right away from the fire-engine shed, considerable
fresh!"

At this moment a train came puffing along laden with masses of ironwork
for the central building. The horses shied at the smoky monster, turned
a somersault (at least, so it seemed to me), and we nearly took a header
into the lake again; but the charioteer managed to turn them just in
time, and the fiery fire-engine steeds snorted past their iron brother,
eclipsing even his noise and steam.

[Illustration: "ON DASHED THE HORSES IN THEIR WILD CAREER."]

I now began to feel thoroughly happy, but I kept a watchful eye on those
gee-gees, and as we skipped over impromptu bridges, whizzed round the
corners of newly-made piles, and bumped over incomplete parapets, I
quite enjoyed myself; but somehow or other I couldn't quite manage to
catch all the marvellous details respecting the buildings we were
passing. I was qualifying myself for the Volunteer Fire Brigade. But our
steeds were reined in for a moment while my guide pointed out to me the
Dairy Building.

"I reckon, sir," he said, "that dairy will be an eye-opener. It'll be
_soo_perb, and I guess it won't be long after the opening of the show
that they'll be turning out gold-edged butter!"

Off we go again, over mounds and down dykes, jumping rocks and shooting
rapids, and I am certain that had our conveyance been a milk-cart,
butter, gold-edged or otherwise, would have been produced pretty soon.
We pull up with a jerk opposite the Agricultural Building.

"The building is 5,000 by 8,000 feet, design bold and heroic. On each
corner and from the centre of the building are reared pavilions."

"Indeed!" I said. "Are they reared by incubators, or upon some special
soil from the fertile tracts of the Far West?"

My guide did not evidently deem my question worthy an answer, and
continued:

"Surmounted by a mammoth glass dome 460 feet high, constructed on
purpose to accommodate the giant Pennsylvan