The giants of course were made of stucco, and the field they reposed upon was the side of the building, also made of stucco. That mattered little. The place was one of enchantment and the merry giants guarded the pleasant mysteries of it all.
Immediately behind the giants was a great room where, for a single thin dime, you might purchase any number of thrills. You might try walking through a revolving tank; walking up a stairway that went down as fast as you went up; sliding down a wooden chute that had ten times as many bumps in it as a dromedary has humps. You might try any number of things that would set you screaming with delight or thrilling with sudden and quite groundless fear.
Nor was this all. There was the skating rink and the City of Venice where you glided in slow moving boats amid stately plaster-of-Paris castles and ancient ruins of the same general composition. There was the palace of mirrors; the chute the chutes; the ferris wheel, and, best and most terrible of all, the roller coaster, a contrivance that, providing you had never ridden upon it before, was capable of crowding a great many thrills into a short minute of time.
To Mazie and Johnny, who, after all, were yet quite young, this place had never lost its charm. They entered into the gayety as wildly as the rest; at least Johnny had on every other occasion. This time Mazie found him every now and again pausing to stand and stare at the teeming thousands of men, women and children. He would stare for a full minute, then with a sudden start would say:
“C’mon, let’s go in here,” or “Let’s go over there.”
At last, after leading him to a refreshment stand where they ordered a cooling drink, Mazie turned to him with a sudden question:
“What’s the matter with you to-night?”
“I don’t know,” said Johnny slowly. “Mazie, do you believe in premonitions?”
“What’s that? Some new religion?”
“No. It’s seeing things before they come to pass.”