The chauffeur fumbles with the crank of the top-heavy car. It does not respond readily. The chauffeur perspires and the personal conductor--who will shortly emerge in the rôle of lecturer--offers advice. The chauffeur softly profanes. Interested spectators gather about and begin to make comments of a personal nature. Finally, when the chauffeur is about to give it all up and you and yours are to be plunged into mortification--you can safely suspect those young blondes on the rival enterprise across the way of laughing in their tight little sleeves at you--the engine begins to snort violently and throb industriously. The chauffeur wipes the perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand and smiles triumphantly at the scoffers across the street. He jumps into his seat briskly, as if afraid that the car might change its mind, and you are off. The ship's company settles into various stages of contentment. Seein' Washington at last.... The lecturer reaches for his megaphone. But not so fast--this is Washington. The real start has not yet begun. All these are but preliminaries to the start of the real start. You are not going to bump into the world of wealth and fashion as quickly as all this. You go along Pennsylvania avenue for another two squares and for twenty minutes more traffic is solicited. The novelty wears off and contentment ceases. "I don't purpose to pay a dollar for a ride and spend the hull time settin' 'round like a public hack in front of th' hotels," says a bald-headed man and he voices a rising sentiment. He is from Baltimore and he is frankly skeptical of all things in Washington. The lecturer and the chauffeur confer. The performance with the engine crank is given once again and you finally make a real start. Entertainment begins from that start. But you get history as a preliminary to wealth and fashion, for it so happens that wealth and fashion do not dwell in that part of Pennsylvania avenue. "Site of first p'lice station in Washington," the young man rattles out through his megaphone. "Oldest hotel in Washington. Washington's Chinatown. Peace Monument. Monument to Albert Pike, Gran' Master of the Southern Masons; only Confederate monument in the city. Home o' Fightin' Bob Evans, there with the tree against the window. His house was--" "What was that about the Confederates?" the deaf man interrupts from the back seat. The lecturer, with an expression of utter boredom, repeats. At this moment the chauffeur comes into the limelight. He recognizes a girl friend on the sidewalk and in the enthusiasm of that recognition nearly bumps the grandstand into a load of brick. When order is restored and you go forward in a straight course once again, the lecturer resumes--