"Now please don't joke," she begged, half-laughing. "You've had the cookies already."
"Of course, just a retaining fee as it were. Blitzen and I want some more before I go to bed."
"But such an obligation," pleaded Miss Berry.
"Such a pleasure, Aunt Love," rejoined her lawyer. "Now, to change the subject, what is Pearfield's opinion about the World's Fair? Where do you think it ought to be held?"
"I don't know enough about the different cities to say," returned Miss Berry. "I see by the papers some o' the Western cities think they have as good a right as anybody. Chicago is after it. Such an idea! As though folks want to have to traipse way across the country to see the Fair. I don't know much about public questions," continued Miss Lovina, complacently smoothing her apron, "but I know enough to see that there ain't any sense in that notion, and reasonable folks won't listen to it; not but what Chicago's a good deal of a city, I s'pose."
"Chicagoans have that idea," answered Page, smiling. "I have a friend who recently returned from Europe; and he says that one day in the boat's music-room he found on the table a book purporting to portray only Chicago and its suburbs. There were pictures in it of Niagara Falls and the Yellowstone Park."
"Do tell!" exclaimed Miss Berry, laughing. "Well, where do you want the Fair to be, Mr. Gorham?"
"Oh, I feel as though New York were the proper place. I think it is the general feeling that it would be a risk to trust a matter like that to Chicago. There has been a very clever cartoon published recently in New York, showing our principal cities represented as pretty women standing in a semicircle around Uncle Sam waiting to see which shall receive a bouquet which he holds in his hands labeled 'World's Fair,'—that is, they are all pretty women except Chicago, who is a half-grown, scrawny girl, arrayed in an evening gown covered with a pattern of little pigs. She has huge diamonds blazing in her breast and ears, her thin arms are bare, and the hands she wildly stretches out to Uncle Sam wear white kid gloves with one button at the wrist. Her mouth is wide open, and she is evidently vociferously demanding the prize, while New York, a beautiful society girl, gazes at her with well-bred scorn. For my own part, I think New York may overdo the nonchalant business, and if she does, the energetic maiden stands a good chance to gain her end."
"How do you suppose your cousin Jack likes to have his city made such game of?" asked Miss Lovina.
"Oh, I fancy Jack has learned by this time to view the Garden City from a Bostonian standpoint. I don't know what his views are on the subject of the Fair. I have seen very little of him the last years."