"If one doesn't go to Europe," said Gunning, "the only place is Newport. You must come to Newport, Miss Ballinger—you really must. It's yachting, dancing, or picnics all the time. You should see how our swells live there. Why, Cowes isn't in it—it isn't really. Our prominent cottagers give such entertainments! Why, there was one luncheon party last year that cost—"
"Don't tell me, Mr. Gunning. It makes me feel that I am a pauper."
Miss Lobb here interposed to observe that it was only in effete old countries that pauperism was tolerated. She looked through her double glasses defiantly at Grace as she added, "With us it is exterminated."
Sir Mordaunt Ballinger's face was convulsed with suppressed laughter, as he touched his sister's elbow at this moment. "Listen to Mr. Ruggs's account of Chicago. If it doesn't make you wish to go there! Will you tell my sister what you were saying about your city?"
"I tell you, miss," said the fat little man, turning a pair of twinkling eyes on Grace, and with an expression so shrewd and humorous that she felt uncertain how far he was in earnest, how far endeavoring to impose on her credulity—"I tell you, miss, we are going to have the finest city in the whole creation. Don't you make a mistake. There will be nothing to touch it, until the New Jerusalem is built. Why, already it takes more than two hours to drive from one end of it to the other! We've got a street twelve miles long. We've got a tonsorial saloon paved with dollar-pieces, and a hotel of alabaster and gold. I tell you, miss, there is nothing to touch it in Europe!"
"And about the World's Fair, Mr. Ruggs? tell us what you propose doing?" asked Sir Mordaunt.
"Well, sir, we propose bringing over a few of your European princes, and having them on show. We are in treaty for the Duke of Braganza, as direct descendant of Columbus, whose bones we feel like having—if we can—but, odd to say, they make some difficulties. The bones and the descendants will come right over in galleons made on the model of those that brought Columbus. We also propose to bring over the Sphinx—"
"What! From Egypt?" Miss Ballinger laughed outright. "Poor Sphinx! It will feel very strange away from its native desert."
"Oh, we'll blow a lot of sand up right around it. We've got plenty on the shore of our lake. That's for the classical advertisement. Then for the Scriptural one. I did think of having Pharaoh in the Red Sea, and dividing the water by hydraulic pressure; but making the waves red might create a sort of a—feeling—the citizens might feel kinder uncomfortable. There's no reason against the Garden of Eden—plenty of apple-trees, and snakes are common—there's only a little difficulty about Adam and Eve. However, I've no doubt we shall hit on something. People do like something Scriptural. There's Ammergau, now! That would do fust-rate, only those peasants wouldn't come."
"But you're going to have a bigger theatre than the world has ever seen, I suppose?"