The boys were impressed by the seriousness of the old man’s talk.
“You are Irish?” asked Philip.
“Of course,” he said, with a smile; and throwing open his overcoat he displayed a badge big enough to prove anything. They parted with mutual wishes of “good luck.”
Since Harry had refused to go further into the exhibits of school work, they went down to the main floor, and walked from the southwest corner northward. As in the other buildings they had visited, they found along the walls little stands where young women had on sale penholders, souvenir coins, shell-boxes, necklaces—cheap trinkets of all sorts. For the first few days the boys had gone to see what was shown at these booths; but soon they found there was pretty much the same stock everywhere, and walked by indifferently. They had bought, however, a few things—one a little shield showing the arms Queen Isabella granted to Columbus.
“—AND THE CAT
CAME BACK.”
Against the wall about half-way up toward the north end were several “graphophones”—contrivances something like Edison’s phonograph. On dropping a nickel and hooking two hard-rubber tubes into the ears, one might hear instrumental music or songs. A small boy tried one of those machines while Harry and Philip looked on. The tubes were adjusted, and he stood gravely awaiting the result. A smile began to dawn on his lips. It spread widely. His mouth opened; he giggled aloud; he kept on giggling with his eyes closing through pure joy.
Harry tried the machine and found that it was repeating a comic singer’s rendering of “The Cat Came Back,” and he grinned quite as widely as the small boy had done, and afterward sketched the scene with full sympathy.
“That’s a great invention for invalids,” said Philip, thoughtfully.
“Yes,” said Harry, warmly; “think how it would soothe a restless invalid during a long night to hear one of those machines grind out ‘The Cat Came Back!’”