Leaving the park, they inquired how to get back into the business center of the city, and were told to take the cable-cars. These proved to differ in some ways from New York cars, and one feature seemed worthy to be copied. At the ends of each car the side seats ceased, leaving a clear floor all across the car near the door, so that those who were compelled to stand should not obstruct the middle aisle at the doorway.
“That’s a good idea,” Philip remarked, as he pointed out the arrangement to Harry; “for I’ve often noticed how people are sure to stand right in the doorway, blocking up the passage.”
When they were near the end of their trip, the cars ran underground through a whitewashed tunnel, and the boys made up their minds that they were either running under the river or under the railway-tracks.
“It’s about time for lunch,” said Mr. Douglass, looking at his watch; and turning to a young man beside him, he asked where there was a good lunch-room. The young man recommended one, and they felt grateful to him afterward. It was a large establishment, containing several kinds of lunch-rooms. They went into the “business man’s lunch-room,” and had an excellently cooked meal at a fair price.
THE ROOKERY. THE BOARD
OF TRADE BUILDING.
Until it was time to take the steamer, they wandered about the city looking at the more notable buildings and enjoying the sensation of being in a strange place. The great wholesale stores were like those in parts of New York, but New York had nothing just like some of the lofty buildings of more than twenty stories. Harry said that if there were two or three streets like Broadway and running across one another, or if Broadway were cut off in sections and laid criss-cross, the result would resemble Chicago. They saw the Auditorium again, and the Chamber of Commerce building, as well as some others; but the rain was unpropitious to sight-seeing, and they soon determined to make their way toward the “Whaleback” steamer. Of course they went wrong at first, for Chicago is a puzzling place to strangers, and Harry had to ask a big policeman for directions. He was hardly old enough yet to have lost his awe of “cops,” and felt relieved when the officer showed himself courteous and obliging. From what he had read of Chicago distances, Harry would not have been surprised to have been told he must “go fifteen miles south, then take a cable-car four miles west”; but their destination proved to be not so very far away.
A STREET BRIDGE ACROSS THE CHICAGO RIVER, SWUNG OPEN FOR THE PASSAGE OF BOATS.
Another cable-car rattled them down to Van Buren Street, and they found themselves, after a short walk, upon the dock awaiting the iron vessel so aptly named “Whaleback.”