“I think,” said my companion, “that it would be a good thing to see the street fair.”

“Oh, no,” said the secretary earnestly.  “You don’t want to see that.  There is nothing about it that is representative of Montgomery.  It is just a traveling show such as you might run into anywhere.”

“Yes,” I said, “but we never have run into one before, and here it is.”

“I have said right along,” declared the secretary, somberly, “that it was a great mistake to bring this fair here at all.  I don’t think you ought to pay any attention to it in your book.  It will give people a wrong impression of our city.”

“Do you think it will, if I explain that it is just a traveling fair?”

“Yes.  Wait until you see what we have to show you.  We want you to understand that Montgomery is a thriving metropolis, sir!”

“What is there to see?”

“Montgomery,” he replied, “is known as ‘The City of Sunshine.’  It is rich in history.  It has superior hotels, picturesque highways, good fishing and hunting, two golf courses, seven theaters, a number of tennis courts, and unsurpassed artesian water.  It has free factory sites, the cheapest electric power rates in the United States, and is the best-lighted city in the country.”

“We have some pretty fair street lighting in New York,” interjected my companion, who takes much pride in his home town.

“I said ‘one of the best lighted,’” replied the secretary.

“What is the population?”

“Montgomery,” the other returned, “is typical of both the Old and the New South.  Though it may be called a modern model city, its wealth of history and tradition are preserved with loving care by its myriad inhabitants.”

“How many inhabitants?”

“Roses and other flowers are in bloom here throughout the year,” said he.  “Also there are six hundred miles of macadamized and picturesque highways in Montgomery County.  Indeed, this region is a motorist’s paradise.”

“How many people did you say?”

“Montgomery,” he answered, “is the trading center for a million prosperous souls.”

At this my companion, who had been reading up Montgomery in a guidebook, began to bristle with hidden knowledge.

“You say there are a million people here?” he demanded.

“Not right here,” admitted the secretary.

“Well, how many do you claim?”

“Fifty-five thousand four hundred and ten.”

“Right in the city?”

“Well, in the trolley-car territory.”

“But in the city itself?” my companion insisted.

The secretary was fairly cornered.  “The 1910 census,” he said, with a smile, “gave us about forty thousand.”

“Thirty-eight thousand one hundred and thirty-six,” corrected my companion.  He had not spent hours with the guidebook for nothing.

When, presently, we got into the automobile, I gave another feeble chirp about the fair, but the secretary was adamant, so we yielded temporarily, and were whirled about the city.