Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/259

Rh other costly and elegant paintings. On either side of the mantle is a large ornamented case filled with all kinds of shells, geological specimens, and in fact, everything rare and beautiful.

You might spend many days in going over this house and the grounds, and always find many things to attract your attention. Although the house is situated in the most fashionable part of the city, the enclosure contains twelve or fifteen acres. You can there find rare flowers and fruits from every clime. While wandering through these grounds one can scarcely believe he is in the heart of a great city. Here are three or four handsome green houses; a large fish pond, with a fountain continually playing in it; a gardener's house; a warren for rabbits; a house for pigeons, and one for bees; and if you descend along that graveled walk, lined on each side with wild flowers, you will come to a large vineyard of the choicest kinds of grapes.

Strangers are allowed the privilege of walking through these grounds and looking in the green houses. With all his wealth so unassuming is Mr. L. that after he has shown strangers through the grounds, I have known them when leaving to offer him money for his trouble, little thinking that plain and unassuming man was the owner of the magnificent place they had been admiring, and the wealthiest man in the west.

On my going early to work one December morning, I saw a great crowd collected on the corner of Fourth and Elm. On coming to the place, I found the boys had taken possession of their usual winter pleasure grounds. The driver of a soap-cart had presumed to intrude upon their grounds, and a number of the boys