I knew they would soon discover that I had dodged them, and return; so, replacing my revolver, taking my cane, and keeping an eye down Broadway, I glided across the silent thoroughfare, went down Vesey Street to North River, and thence down West Street to Pier No. 1, which was not really much out of my way.
I reached the boat in good time, and arrived in Philadelphia that day by twelve o’clock.
ABOUT the middle of March I concluded to take a tour to Baltimore, Harper’s Ferry, Antietam Battle-field, Hagerstown and Harrisburg: at all of which places—and especially ANTIETAM—I had been before. I intended to occupy three or four weeks, and made arrangements to act meantime as correspondent for a paper.
Nothing unusual happened to me on the way to Baltimore, except that on looking from a car window at Havre de Grace, a small particle of cinder from the engine flew into my eye; which kept it red and inflamed, and furnished me with first-class pain, at intervals, for the ensuing two weeks.
A bit of cinder from a locomotive, with all its “fine points,” is, I think, the severest thing that can work its way into a man’s optic organ. Had railroads been in vogue in the days of King John, what a point young Arthur might have made, when remonstrating with Hubert who had been authorized to burn his eyes out with a red-hot poker, and eloquently descanting on the sensitiveness of the eye, by reminding him how it felt even when a cinder from a locomotive got into it. For example, how would the passage read in this shape?——
“O, heaven! that there were but a mote in yours, A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wand’ring hair, _Or the ten-thousandth part of a dead spark From the smoke-stack of a lo-com’-o-tive_; Any annoyance in that precious sense! Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there, Your vile intent must needs seem horrible!”
It will be perceived that the two lines in italics are my (John Smith’s) own production: the rest is Shakspeare’s. I will not venture to predict what critics will say of the relative merits of the two authors in this case.
As the trains from Philadelphia enter Baltimore, they cross a wide, clean, quiet street, called “Broadway.” It bears no resemblance to the Broadway of New York, as it is occupied chiefly by private dwellings. The trains always stop there a minute or two to allow those who wish to get off. This street runs north and south and of course crosses Baltimore street, the principal business thoroughfare, which runs east and west. The Baltimore-street railway extends down Broadway, and as several cars are always in waiting when trains arrive, many passengers get off the train here, take a street-car, and ride into the heart of the city. I always do so when I visit the “Monumental city.” I did so on this occasion, having first instructed the baggage-express agent to send my trunk to my hotel.