FORT DEARBORN. (CHICAGO, 1804–1816.)
CHAPTER XII
The Tally-ho — How it dashed along — The Parks along the Lake — Chicago — The Auditorium and other Sky-dwellers — The Whaleback.
MEMORIAL BUILDING, ON
THE SITE WHERE THE
GREAT FIRE STARTED.
On Tuesday morning the party hurried through their breakfast in order to catch the tally-ho which was to pause in its mad career to pick up passengers from their hotel. Although it was a cloudy morning, threatening rain, they did not like to postpone this trip again. Consequently ten o’clock, the hour set, beheld them “all agog to dash through thick and thin” like John Gilpin.
Presently something drew up at the door. It was not what would be called by the critical a tally-ho. It was not even a coach. It was on wheels, it had seats here and there, and four animals dragged it. Baron Munchausen once had his horse cut close off by the fall of a portcullis. If the same accident had befallen a tally-ho, and it had been then spliced to the end of a park wagon, the resulting vehicle would have been not unlike the wagon which presented itself at the door.
“Is this it?” asked Mr. Douglass, dubiously presenting his ticket.
“This,” said the man (he was hardly yet a voter), “is it. Yes, sir. The tally-ho, sir.”