[Illustration: HERE WE ARE!] [Illustration: ADMINISTRATION BUILDING.] CHAPTER II _The Fête Night_ — _Rainbow Fountains_ — _The Search-lights_ — _On the Lake_ — _The Fireworks_ — _Passing a Wreck_ — _Diving in the Grand Basin._ “Well,” remarked Harry, as the wicket turned and let him into the grounds, “if any one wishes to take down what I said on entering the grounds, he can write down these thrilling words: ‘Here we are at last!’” “We won’t try to do more than get a general idea of things to-night,” said Mr. Douglass. “We shall find claims upon our eyesight at every step. But what a crowd!” The crowd was certainly enormous. At first most of the people seemed to be coming out, but this idea was a mistake. It came from the fact that those going the same way as our party attracted their attention less than those whom they met and had to pass. [Illustration: A TICKET OF ADMISSION.] They walked between the Pennsylvania Railroad exhibit and the Transportation Building, and entered the Administration Building, which seemed the natural gateway to the Court of Honor and its Basin—always the central point of interest. The paving seemed to be a composition not unlike the “staff” that furnished the material for the great buildings, the balustrades, the statues, and the fountains. It was just at dusk, and the light was soft and pleasant to the eyes. Once in the Administration Building, all our sight-seers threw back their heads and gazed up within the dim and distant dome enriched by its beautiful frescos. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE DOME OF THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING.] “I have heard,” said the tutor, who felt bound to serve as guide so far as his experience would warrant, “that people are unable to understand the vastness of St. Peter’s dome at Rome. This dome is even higher, and so I feel sure that, large as it seems to us, our ideas of it fall far below the reality. However, we shall see this many times. Let us go on through, and see the Court of Honor.” Leaving by the east portal, the three came out upon the broad plaza that fronts the basin. By this time the sky was a deep, dark blue, and every outline of the superb group of buildings was sharply relieved. For a while the three stood silent. There was nothing to say; but each of them felt that the work of men’s hands—of the human imagination—had never come so near to rivaling Nature’s inimitable glories. The full moon stood high above the buildings at their right, but even her serenity could not make the great White City seem petty. The boys knew no words to express what they felt. They only knew that in their lives they had never been so impressed except when gazing upon a glorious sunset, an awe-inspiring thunderstorm, or the unmeasured expanse of the ocean. Philip was the first to speak. “_Must_ it be taken down? _Why_ couldn’t they leave it? It is—unearthly!”