They are mighty proud of their one sky-scraper up in Seattle.

It is a long, skinny building that stands on one leg like a stork
and blinks down disdainfully from its thousand windows on ordinary
fifteen-story shacks.

A San Francisco man recently in that city was incautious enough to
express surprise.

"What are those posts sticking out all the way up?" he asked a
Seattleite.

"Those are mile-posts," said the Seattle man.


A gentleman from Vermont was traveling west in a Pullman when a group
of men from Topeka, Kansas, boarded the train and began to praise
their city to the Vermonter, telling him of its wide streets and
beautiful avenues. Finally the Vermonter became tired and said
the only thing that would improve their city would be to make it a
seaport.

The enthusiastic Westerners laughed at him and asked how they could
make it a seaport, being so far from the ocean.

The Vermonter replied that it would be a very easy task.

"The only thing that you will have to do," said he, "is to lay a