"You wouldn't run over me, would you, Toby?" asked Mildred.
The boy trudging by through the crowd, showed his ivories in a smile of recognition, and urged his little white donkey onward in the narrow, crooked, brick-paved street.
Such a throng, such a noise, only the memories of the experienced can witness to. Camels swung along between the irregular houses, the warning cries of their drivers mingling with the monotonous sing-song of the venders in the closely packed booths.
Egyptian flower girls, veiled to the eyes, plied their trade. A conjurer pushed his way amid the gazers, a hen's egg sticking in his eye and another clinging behind his jaw. The rhythm of the Midway sounded from two drums slung at either side of a gaudily caparisoned camel, and was sung monotonously from the booth of the much-vaunted Oriental sweetmeat:—
"Alla gooda bum-bum,
Vera nice candy,
Beautifula bum-bum,
Vera good candy,"
repeated ad libitum by the swarthy Arab presiding.
Mildred and Jack glanced into the showcases as they passed onward, the former restraining her companion from purchasing specimens of brasswork, filigree silver, ornaments, and embroidery. But once Mildred exclaimed with pleasure over a small hanging-lamp of dull silver.
"I will take it," said Jack to the instantly voluble salesman.
"Not for me; no don't," protested his companion.
"You must have a souvenir," returned Van Tassel, smiling over the word which had grown hateful by iteration to all Fair-goers.