The gentleman in question was Daniel Willard, president of the Baltimore & Ohio, who on an occasion in New York listened courteously to some facetious observations I had to make on the subject of the wonders of the B. & O., and two days later heaped coals of fire upon my head by sending me by mail a pass over his railroad. I was of course delighted; but before using it decided to read carefully the "conditions and limitations named on the reverse side," under which it was issued. I turned the treasure over and read the following:
This pass will be accepted for transportation WHEN ACCOMPANIED BY CERTIFICATE of Company's Agent, attested by office-stamp, that the bearer has presented evidence of being HOPELESSLY INDIGENT, DESTITUTE, AND HOMELESS, or an INMATE OF A CHARITABLE OR ELEEMOSYNARY INSTITUTION, a SOLDIER or SAILOR about to enter either a NATIONAL HOME or "A HOUSE BOAT ON THE STYX," or otherwise qualified as entitled to free transportation under Federal or State Laws.
I do not remember whether or not I ever thanked Mr. Willard for this courtesy; but if I did not I do so now, and beg to assure him that I would not exchange that little document to-day for a controlling interest in his road. I am not much of a business man, but I have a keen sense of relative values.
XI
MINE HOST
Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn.
So wrote William Shenstone, a minor poet of England in those brilliant days that produced Addison, and Swift, and Richard Steele, and our own great philosopher and humorist Benjamin Franklin. I used formerly to sympathize deeply with the poet's sentiment, so charmingly expressed, and in a certain way I do so still; but in the last decade, involving so much wandering, and so many inns of varied degrees of excellence, I have found that my sympathy with Shenstone's thought has undergone considerable modification. I should indeed sigh to think that I had found my warmest welcome at an inn; but I should hesitate to indorse any sentiment that would seem to underestimate the value of the whole-souled, genial character of Mine Host, as I have encountered him in all parts of the United States.
While I cannot truthfully say that I think we Americans have a genius for hotel management, such as our cousins of Switzerland, for instance, appear to have, I can at least say that I believe we have a natural aptitude for a peculiarly delightful kind of spontaneous hospitality, of which I have been for years the grateful beneficiary. If a hotel were a thing of the spirit solely, I should say that the hostelries of the United States, taking them by and large, approximate perfection; but unfortunately one cannot impart tenderness to a steak with cordial smiles, freshness to an egg with a twinkling eye, or the essential properties of coffee to a boiled bean with a pleasant word; and if in the South and Middle West it were possible to sweep a room clean with a welcoming wave of the hand, and to set a mobilized entomology in full retreat with the fervor of an advance in friendliness, I should not think so often, perhaps, upon the possible duties of local Boards of Health in respect to the American hotel situation.