American Adventures | Page 8

wishes to dispose "a genuine antique," will assure
you--and not always with a strict regard for truth--that it is "practically
as good as new." Or compare the seller of antiques with the horse
dealer. Can you imagine the latter's taking you up to some venerable
quadruped--let alone a three-year-old--and discoursing upon its merits
in some such manner as the following:
"This is the oldest and most historic horse that has ever come into my
possession. Just look at it, sir! The farmer of whom I bought it assured
me that it was brought over by his ancestors in the Mayflower. The
place where I found it was used as Washington's headquarters during
the Revolutionary War, and it is known that Washington himself
frequently sat on this very horse. It was a favorite of his. For he was a
large man and he liked a big, comfortable, deep-seated horse, well
braced underneath, and having strong arms, so that he could tilt it back
comfortably against the wall, with its front legs off the floor, and--"
But no! That won't do. It appears I have gotten mixed. However, you
know what I meant to indicate. I merely meant to show that a horse
dealer wouldn't talk about a horse as an antique dealer would talk about
a chair. Even if the horse was once actually ridden by the Father of his
Country, the dealer won't stress the point. You can't get him to admit
that a horse has reached years of discretion, let alone that it is one
hundred and forty-five years old, or so. It is this difference between the
horse dealer and the dealer in antiques which keeps us in the dark
to-day as to exactly which horses Washington rode and which he didn't

ride; although we know every chair he ever sat in, and every bed he
ever slept in, and every house he ever stopped in, and how he is said to
have caught his death of cold.
Having thus wandered afield, let me now resume my nocturnal walk.
Proceeding down Howard Street to Franklin, I judged by the signs I
saw about me--the conglomerate assortment of theaters, hotels,
rathskellers, bars, and brilliantly lighted drug stores--that here was the
center of the city's nighttime life.
Not far from this corner is the Academy, a very spacious and somewhat
ancient theater, and although the hour was late, into the Academy I
went with a ticket for standing room.
Arriving during an intermission, I had a good view of the auditorium. It
is reminiscent, in its interior "decoration," of the recently torn-down
Wallack's Theater in New York. The balcony is supported, after the old
fashion, by posts, and there are boxes the tops of which are draped with
tasseled curtains. It is the kind of theater which suggests traditions, dust,
and the possibility of fire and panic.
After looking about me for a time, I drew from my pocket a pamphlet
which I had picked up in the hotel, and began to gather information
about the "Monumental City," as Baltimore sometimes calls
itself--thereby misusing the word, since "monumental" means, in one
sense, "enduring," and in another "pertaining to or serving as a
monument": neither of which ideas it is intended, in this instance, to
convey. What Baltimore intends to indicate is, not that it pertains to
monuments, but that monuments pertain to it: that it is a city in which
many monuments have been erected--as is indeed the pleasing fact. My
pamphlet informed me that the first monument to Columbus and the
first to George Washington were here put up, and that among the city's
other monuments was one to Francis Scott Key. I had quite forgotten
that it was at Baltimore that Key wrote the words of "The
Star-Spangled Banner," and, as others may have done the same, it may
be well here to recall the details.

In 1814, after the British had burned a number of Government
buildings in Washington, including "the President's palace" (as one of
their officers expressed it), they moved on Baltimore, making an attack
by land at North Point and a naval attack at Fort McHenry on
Whetstone Point in the estuary of the Patapsco River--here practically
an arm of Chesapeake Bay. Both attacks were repulsed. Having gone
on the United States cartel ship Minden (used by the government in
negotiating exchanges of prisoners) to intercede for his friend, Dr.
William Beanes, of Upper Marlborough, Maryland, who was held
captive on a British vessel, Key witnessed the bombardment of Fort
McHenry from the deck of the Minden, and when he perceived "by the
dawn's early light" that the flag still flew over the fort, he was moved to
write his famous poem. Later it was printed and set to music; it was
first sung in a