“Now Philip says he’d like to go into the Soudanese Exhibit,” said Mr. Douglass, looking at a little plan of the Plaisance. He was a systematic traveler, and always secured a map or plan of each place he visited. They turned into a small inclosure, after buying tickets and seeing them dropped into a battered black tin box (the regular preliminary to all the shows), and found themselves the only visitors in a canvas tent that sheltered a board platform raised a little above the ground. On the platform sat two men and a woman; and about the tent was playing a lively little Soudanese baby—advertised outside as the “Dancing-baby only eighteen months old!” [Illustration: THE FLOWER-GIRL.] It was to photograph the baby that Philip had come in. But no sooner did the awful black box appear than there was a hubbub. “No, no!” shrieked the mother, fiercely. “Nah, nah!” cried the men; and Philip, supposing that he had threatened to interfere with some of their religious scruples, dejectedly lowered his box. But, as they turned away, our innocent travelers quickly had their eyes opened to the true situation. “One dollar, one dollar!” cried one of the men, following them up. He was tastefully attired in a fez, a long white burnoose (a garment exactly like a nightgown), and red slippers. Then Harry, who had traveled abroad, felt equal to the situation. He wheeled around with a look of grieved surprise. “One dollar?” he exclaimed. “Oh, no, no. Twenty-five cents. One quarter.” “No, no. One dollar!” spoke the Soudanese. “One quarter,” insisted the American boy, “or fifty cents for the whole family”; and he waved his arms as if amazed at his own lavish generosity. “No. Fifty cent for the baby,” suggested the dark dickerer. “Twenty-five in here, fifty if you will take her into the sunshine. Come along,” said Harry, starting for the door. “All-a right!” and the Soudanese made the bargain. For the half-dollar, he conducted the baby to a good light, and let her be taken. This little tot was as bright as a new cowrie-shell; she had around her waist a dozen rows of tiny dry hoofs taken from some small animal, and these gave her great delight. She crowed and jumped, and rattled at every motion. “Why, a rattlesnake would be scared to death at such a baby!” said Harry; “and her mother couldn’t lose her if she tried. But she couldn’t go to church with that thing on—not if she was restless!” After taking one more picture, the portrait of an Egyptian flower-girl who wandered into the tent, and whose costume, if not her face, was her fortune (at a quarter for every photograph), the explorers waved a final good-by to the rattling baby and turned again into Cairo Street. Before an attentive circle, just outside the inclosure, an Arab was beginning a performance of trained animals—at least he had a kid poised on a pedestal, and a monkey making ready to ride.