But while we wuz a-standin’ there a-lookin’ round to see jest which wuz the best way to go to get to the corner Miss Plank had directed us to, Mr. Bolster come down the steps spry and active as a young cat, and, sez he—­

“My carriage is waiting to take me to my orfice, and I will be glad to take you both in, and take you past some of our city sights, and I will leave you at a station where the train will take you right to the grounds.”

So we accepted his offer, Josiah with joy and I with a becomin’ dignity, and the carriage sot off down the street.

And what follers truly seems like a dream to me, and so duz the talk accompanyin’ it.  The tall buildin’s we looked at, one of ’em 260 feet high, 20 storys—­elevators that carry 40,000 passengers—­and a garden on the roof, a garden 260 feet in the air, where you can set and talk and eat nut-cakes, and fried oysters—­the idee!

And then the block that Mr. Bolster said wuz the largest business block in the world, it accomidated 6000 people.  And then we went by big meetin’-housen, and other big housen, whose ruffs seemed so high that it seemed as if you could stand up on the chimblys and shake hands with the man in the moon, and neighbor with him.

And then the talk I hearn—­22 miles of river frontage sweepin’ up from the lake into the heart of the city, where the giant elevators unload their huge traffic.  He told us what the revenue of the city wuz yearly, $25,000,000, 25 millions—­the idee!

And Jonesville, fifty years older than Chicago, thinks she has done well if she has 3 dollars and 25 cents in her treasury.

Why, that man used so many immense sums in his talk, that I got all muddled up, and a ort seemed to me almost like a million—­I felt queer.

And then the system of Parks and Boulevards, the finest in the world—­100 miles of them beautiful pleasure drives.  I believe, from what I see afterwards, that he told the truth, for no city, it seems to me, could improve on that long, broad, beautiful way, smooth and tree-bordered, edged with stately homes, leadin’ into the matchless beauty of the Parks.

But anon, when I felt that I wuz bein’ crushed down beneath a gigantic weight of figgers, and estimates, elevators, population, hite, depth, underground tunnels, and systems of drainage—­though every one of ’em wuz a grand and likely subject and awful big—­but I felt that I wuz a-bein’ crushed by ’em—­I felt that the Practical, the Real wuz a crushin’ me down—­the weight, and noise, and size of the mighty iron wheel of Progress, that duz roll faster in Chicago than in any other place on earth, it seems to me.  But I felt so trodden down by it, and flattened out, that I thought I would love to see sunthin’ or other different, sunthin’ kinder spiritual, and meditate a spell on some of the onseen forces that underlays all human endeavor.

So, at my request, we went out of our way a little, so I could set my eyes on that Temple dreamed out by a woman and wrought a good deal by faith, some like the walls of Jericho, only different, for whereas they fell by faith, this wuz riz up by it.