And my companion bein' willin', and Mr. Bolster bein' more than willin', they plunged to once into a conversation concernin' Chicago, Miss Plank and I a-listenin' to 'em some of the time, and some of the time a-talkin' on our own hook, as is the ways of wimmen. Mr. Bolster--and I believe he knew that we wuz from York State, and did it partly in a boastin' way--he begun most to once to prove that Chicago wuz the only place in America at all suitable to hold the World's Fair in. And I gin him to understand that I thought that New York would have been a good place for it, and it wuz a disapintment to me and to several other men and wimmen in the State to not have it there. But Mr. Bolster says, "Why, Chicago is the only place at all proper for it. Why," sez he, "in a way of politeness, Chicago is the only place for it. In what other city could the foreigners be welcomed by their own people as they can here?" Sez he-- "In Chicago over 75 per cent of the population is foreign." "Yes," sez Josiah, with a air as if he had made population a study from his youth. But he didn't know nothin' about it, no more than I did. Sez Mr. Bolster, "Out of a population of a little over a million 200,000, we have nine hundred and 14,000 foreigners. That shows in itself that Chicago is the only city calculated to make our foreign friends feel perfectly at home." "Yes," sez Josiah, "that is very true." But I sez to Miss Plank, "There is other folks I like jest as well as I do my relations, and if they had thought so much on 'em, why didn't they stay with 'em in the first place?" And Miss Plank kinder looked knowin' and nodded her head; she couldn't swing right out free, as I could, bein' hampered by not wantin' to offend any of her boarders. Sez Mr. Bolster, "Chicago has the most energetic and progressive people in the world. It hain't made up, like a Eastern village, of folks that stay to home and set round on butter-tubs in grocery stores, talkin' about hens. No, it is made up of people who dared--who wuz too energetic, progressive, and ambitious, to settle down and be content with what their fathers had. And they struck out new paths for themselves, as the Pilgrim Fathers did. "And it is of these people, who represent the advancin' and progressive thought of the day, that Chicago is made up. It embodies the best energy and ambition of the Eastern States and of Europe." "Yes," sez Josiah, "that is jest so." And then, sez Mr. Bolster, "Chicago is, as is well known, in the very centre of the earth." [Illustration: "Chicago is the very centre of the earth."] "Yes," sez Josiah. But I struck in here, and couldn't help it, and, sez I, "That is what Boston has always thought;" and, sez I, candidly, "That is what has always been thought about Jonesville." He looked pityin'ly at me, and, sez he, "Where is Jonesville?" And I sez, "Jest where I told you, in the very centre of the earth, as nigh as we can make out." "How old is the place?" sez Mr. Bolster.