“Biggest theater in the world,” said Witherspoon.

“Bigger than La Scala of Milan?” Henry asked.

“Beats anything in the world, and I remember when the ground could have been bought for—­see that lot over there?” he broke off, pointing.  “I bought that once for eighty dollars a foot and sold it for a hundred.”

“Pretty good sale! wasn’t it?” Henry innocently asked.

“Good sale!  What do you suppose it’s worth now!”

“I have no idea.”

“Three thousand a foot if it’s worth a penny.  There never was anything like it since the world began.  I’m not what you might call an old-timer, but I’ve seen some wonderful changes here.  Now, this land right here—­fifteen hundred a foot; could have bought it not so very long ago for fifty.  I tell you the world never saw anything like it.  Why, just think of it; there are men now living who could have bought the best corner in this city for a mere song.  There’s no other town like this.  Look at the buildings.  When a man has lived here a while he can’t live in any other town—­any other town is too slow for him—­and yet I heard an old man say that he could have got all the land he wanted here for a yoke of oxen.”

“But he hadn’t the oxen, eh?”

“Of coarse he had,” Witherspoon replied, “but who wanted to exchange useful oxen for a useless mud-hole?  Beats anything in this world.”

Henry looked at him in astonishment.  His tongue, which at first had seemed to be so tight with silence, was now so loose with talk.  He had dropped no hint of his own importance; he had made not the slightest allusion to the energy and ability that had been required to build his mammoth institution.  His impressive dignity was set aside; he was blowing his town’s horn.

The carriage turned into Prairie Avenue.  “Look at all this,” Witherspoon continued, waving his hand.  “I remember when it didn’t deserve the name of a street.  Look at that row of houses.  Built by a man that used to drive a team.  There’s a beauty going up.  Did you ever see anything like it?”

“I can well say that I never have,” Henry answered.

“I should think not,” said Witherspoon, and pointing to the magnificent home of some obscure man, he added:  “I remember when an old shed stood there.  Just look at that carving in front.”

“Who lives there?” Henry asked.

“Did hear, but have forgotten.  Yonder’s one of green stone.  I don’t like that so well.  Here we have a sort of old stone.  That house looks as though it might be a hundred years old, but it was put up last year.  Well, here’s our house.”

The carriage drew up under the porte-cocher of a mansion built of cobble-stones.  It was as strong as a battlement, but its outlines curved in obedience to gracefulness and yielded to the demand of striking effect.  Viewed from one point it might have been taken for a castle; from another, it suggested itself as a spireless church.  Strangers halted to gaze at it; street laborers looked at it in admiration.  It was showy in a neighborhood of mansions.