CHAPTER II

A BALTIMORE EVENING

I felt her presence by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the night,
As of the one I love.

--LONGFELLOW.


Before I went to Baltimore I had but two definite impressions connected
with the place: the first was of a tunnel, filled with coal gas, through
which trains pass beneath the city; the second was that when a
southbound train left Baltimore the time had come to think of cleaning
up, preparatory to reaching Washington.

Arriving at Baltimore after dark, one gathers an impression of an
adequate though not impressive Union Station from which one emerges to a
district of good asphalted streets, the main ones wide and well lighted.
The Baltimore street lamps are large and very brilliant single globes,
mounted upon the tops of substantial metal columns. I do not remember
having seen lamps of the same pattern in any other city. It is a good
pattern, but there is one thing about it which is not good at all, and
that is the way the street names are lettered upon the sides of the