"I should suppose not."
"That man, Sir, was a machine, and nothing more. A soldier must know something else than merely obeying orders."
By this time they had passed through the gate and stood inside. The street opened before them for a considerable distance with houses on each side. Including the sidewalks it might have been almost twelve feet wide. As only the lower part of the walls of the houses was standing, the show that they made was not imposing. There was no splendor in the architecture or the material, for the style of the buildings was extremely simple, and they were made with brick covered with stucco.
After wandering silently through the streets the Senator at length burst forth:
"I say it's an enormous imposition!"
"What?" inquired Buttons, faintly.
"Why, the whole system of Cyclopedias, Panoramas, Books of Travel, Woodbridge's Geography, Sunday-school Books--"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean the descriptions they give of this place. The fellows who write about it get into the heroics, and what with their descriptions, and pictures, and moralizing, you believe it is a second Babylon. It don't seem possible for any of them to tell the truth. Why, there isn't a single decent-sized house in the place. Oh, it's small! it's small!"
"It certainly might be larger."