Toward evening there was not a foot of Fair ground undecorated by a banana skin, a crust of bread, or a flying paper. Belle considered the signs "Keep off the Grass" quite superfluous, and pulling one up by the roots she sat down on it, thereby keeping the letter, if not the spirit of the law.
"Now, Dave," said she, "the family are all safe off the grounds, and you can go and get a gondola to come and take us for a sail before dark. Everybody is moving toward the lake front to wait for the fireworks, and the lagoons are not so crowded as they were. Let's pretend we're on our honeymoon."
So seldom does Belle wax sentimental over me, I hailed her proposition with outward indifference but inward joy. Securing a gondola to ourselves, in it we were gently swayed through canal and under bridge in the mystical evening light.
The distant rumble of a train on the Intramural, or a quack from a sleepy duck among the rushes, alone broke the stillness.
"This is where I belong!" exclaimed Belle. "I've seen before those Eastern-looking towers and minarets, with the sunset glow on the cloud masses behind them. Look! there's a Turk and a Hindoo crossing the bridge. This is the region, this the soil, the clime. I always knew I wasn't meant for Western America."
"You must have been very naughty last time to have been raised in Michigan this trip. Still this is only Chicago!"
"It's not Chicago! It's the world! Listen to that now—the music of the spheres!"
We approached another gondola that had withdrawn itself from the center of the channel close in to a small island. The man at the stern was doing nothing very picturesquely, but the man at the bow, a swarthy Venetian, was pouring out his soul in an aria from "Cavalleria Rusticana." His voice might not have passed muster at Covent Garden, but in the unique stage setting, which included a group of eager listeners on abridge behind him, one could forgive a break on a high note or two.
The singer threw himself into the spirit of the composition, cast his eyes upward with hand on his heart, and bent them to earth again for the approval of his passengers. There were but two, a young man and a young lady, and to the latter was the hero in costume directing his amorous glances.
"There's romance for you!" said I to Belle, who is notoriously on the lookout for it. I directed our gondolier to draw nearer to his enamoured compatriot. My wife replied uneasily: