And here, dear reader, we come to the end of our present walks and talks about Washington. As I warned you at the outset, I have treated our wanderings as a pleasure-jaunt rather than as a medium of solid instruction. When you find yourself thirsting for the severely practical, you can come back and make the round again, if you choose, in a sight-seeing car, and the megaphone-man will point out to you twice as many objects of interest and give you three times as much information about them--accurate or otherwise. He will take pains to show you all the Government buildings and the hotels, the foreign legations and the theaters, the millionaires’ houses, and parks and circles and statuary which I have dismissed with a line or left unmentioned. He will tell you how many tons every bronze weighs, how long every edifice took in building, and how large a fortune every Senator amassed before crowning his career with a tour of public service. I could have told you these things, too, but, rather than force too fast a gait upon you, I have left them for the megaphone-man and taken for my task some odds and ends he could not take for his. I should have liked to tell you how the Government swept all the electric wires out of the sky and hid them underground; how it drained the marshes on the city’s western edge, cleared the channels of the Potomac, and built out of the dredgings a big pleasure-ground; and how it got rid of the annual inundations, in one of which, just about a generation ago, I crossed the busiest part of Pennsylvania Avenue in a rowboat. These improvements, and others in the same category, have been paralleled by the changes in the architecture of the city, at the expense of tearing down something old to make room for whatever new was to go up. Touched by the spirit of progress, the face of Washington is rapidly becoming as destitute of landmarks as its origin is destitute of myths, and the artist who visits it in quest of the antique has a hunt before him. Nevertheless, it has not lost its picturesque appeal for the pencil guided by imagination, or its colorful legends for the memory seeking relief from more serious things. Hence this book. [Illustration] INDEX Adams, Abigail, 9, 115, 119. John, 7, 73, 110, 119, 150, 156, 228. John Quincy, 20, 58, 65, 96, 147, 150, 151, 181, 280, 281, 282. Mrs. John Quincy, 151. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, 23, 192, 233. Alexandria, Va., 4, 12, 54, 238. Allston, Theodosia, 242. Anacostia, D.C., 84. Anderson, Major Robert, 193. Arlington Cemetery, 235. Army War College, 17, 283. Arthur, Chester A., 224, 281. Bagot, Sir George, 138. Baird, Spencer F., 274. Bancroft, George, 282. Barksdale, William, 103. Barney, Joshua, 15. Barron, James, 257. Beanes, Dr. William, 252. Belasco Theater, 282. Bell, John, 27. Bellows, Rev. Dr. Henry W., 198. Benton, Joel, 254. Thomas H., 277. Bladensburg, Md., 15, 135, 257. Blaine, James G., 203, 215, 227, 282.