Dinner was taken aboard the yacht as it steamed away from Genoa. The
flowers that Harry had bought for Lucille's stateroom she thoughtfully
placed on the table, and with the porcelain they added artistic effect.
The day's experiences were reviewed, and, as the appetizing courses
were served, the conversation drifted back to the World's Columbian Fair
which all had attended. Many of the wonders of the "White City" were
recounted, and Henley in his off-hand manner repeated a compliment
which was paid by a cultivated Parisian who visited the Fair. The
Frenchman said that at the last Paris Exposition, he saw immense and
unsightly structures, such as one might expect to find in far-off
Chicago, but that at the Columbian World's Fair, he beheld buildings
such as his own artistic Paris and France should have furnished; that the
Columbian Fair was an artistic triumph that had never been paralleled
except in the days of imperial Rome by her grand temples, palaces,
arches, bridges, and statues.
"The Parisian is right, and he pays America a most deserved compliment.
Never was so elegant a panorama enrolled as at Chicago," responded
Colonel Harris.
"You are correct, Colonel," said Captain Hall, "the triumph of our
Exposition was largely due to the masterly supervision which evoked
uniformity of design and harmonious groupings by employing only those
of our architects, sculptors, painters, and landscape gardeners, who
possessed the highest skill.
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