“What,” he says, “come to school?”
“Yes,” I answer vaguely, seeing no sign of such institution.
He slides back of me in the foliage, a door revealing a busy scene:
Men, women and children are scattered about, variously occupied. Some are writing upon sheets of transparent material. The pictured script, which subjected to a solution, is shrunk to microscopic dimensions. Other occupations are on each side, extending in a line.
On the farther side of each room are windows looking outside. The school rooms being divided from the inner halls and libraries by the umbrageous alley, in which we sit.
Wheeling my seat ahead (which goes, tree and all, as though one piece on rollers) Show Off explains:
“This school or fair, as Charley calls it, (would I could take it home for exhibition) is devoted to silk.”
I see in process of construction pictures, screens, garments, carpets (which I had taken for sward) with American articles devised from Charley’s lectures. These last are brought out to me for my benefit. A worker hands me a glass of water, which another puts a bouquet of flowers into, on which lights a canary and sings a song, as a fuzzy dog puts up his paws at my side. All are silk.
Down spinning comes a spider. I did not like its looks. It opens its mouth saying:
“Come into my parlor.”