"We are comin' there, madam," says the lecturer, courteously.
And in a little while you do come there. You sit back complacently in your seat and smack your mental lips at the sight of the mansion of the man who owns three banks; of that of him who, the lecturer solemnly affirms, is the president of the Whiskey Trust; at a third where dwells "the richest minister of the United States." A little school-teacher, who has come down from Hartford, Conn., makes profuse notes in a neat leather-covered book. It is plain to see that she takes the duty of the true Americans as a serious enterprise, indeed.
You all start and look when ex-Speaker Cannon's house is passed, and you catch a glimpse of the old man coming down the door-steps. The public interest in him has not seemed to cease with his retirement from the center of the national arena. But it has lessened. You realize that a moment later when your peregrinating grandstand rolls by a solemn-faced man walking down the street--a big man in a black suit, his face hidden by a black slouch hat.
"Mr. Bryan," whispers the lecturer, this time without the megaphone.
It is quite unnecessary. For a brief instant Washington is forgotten. In that instant the crowd regards the second or third best-known man in America--silently and curiously. The lecturer brings them back to their dollar's worth. He boldly points out the Larz Anderson house as the home of "the richest real estate man in the country," the new home of Perry Belmont as having "three stories above ground and three below"--an excursionist from Reading, Pa., interrupts to ask how much coal they will need to fill such a cellar--you see the home of the late Mr. Walsh with "a forty-five hundred dollar marble bench in the yard, all cut out of a single piece," the sedate and stately house of Gifford Pinchot.
It is pleasant, driving through these smooth Washington streets, even if the low-hanging tree branches do make you jump and start at times. You go up this street, down that, past long rows of neat Colonial houses that some day are going to look neat and old--turn by one of the lovely open squares of the city. They have just erected a statue there--grandstands are already going up around about it and there will be speeches and oratory before long.