As the voice spoke these words the growing stalk came to a sudden stop, and the voice added:
"Ogreville! Last stop! All out!"
The boy stepped off the stalk, and found himself in a magnificently broad and fertile country. Great fields of waving grain, numberless pasturages filled with prize cattle of all sorts, surrounded him on every hand. Trees heavily laden with rare fruits bordered the highways, and everything everywhere bore unmistakable evidences of a rare prosperity.
"Phe-e-ew!" whistled Jack, blinking with joy at all he saw before him. "This looks like the land of milk and honey all right. And only twenty minutes by bean-car from New York! What a chance for corner lots, and an easy suburb for business men!"
The lad wandered along for a while, rejoicing in all the beauties of the wondrous scene, when, coming to a turn in the magnificently laid road, he perceived not far ahead of him a splendidly built castle, much resembling a famous city hotel he had once passed on a sight-seeing coach, and, remembering on a sudden that he had had no breakfast, he walked boldly up to the main entrance and knocked on the massive bronze door. A beautiful young girl about his own age answered the summons.
"I don't know if this is a hotel," said Jack, politely, "but if it is, might I get a bite here?"
"I fear you might if my stepfather should happen to see you," replied the girl with a shudder, her face mantling with a deep luscious red, the like of which Jack had never seen anywhere save on the petal of a rose or the cheek of a cherry.
The silvery tones of her voice thrilled him.
"Thank you," he said, stepping into the hallway through the open door. "I shall be very glad to meet your stepfather, and if, while I am waiting, I might have a couple of scrambled eggs and a cup of coffee—"
"Oh, go! Do not stay here!" pleaded the girl. "Please go!"