often read the greater part of a Meredith novel on my way to the office in the morning." So perhaps the Cleveland transits aren't any more rapid than our own.
The rain came down in whirling silver sheets as we crossed the flats toward League Island, but after a short wait at the end of the car line the downfall slackened. Under the guidance of three courteous warrant officers we were piloted about the navy yard.
Nothing is ever so thrilling as a place where ships are gathered, and the adventurousness of a trip to the navy yard begins as soon as one steps off the car and finds great gray hulls almost at one's side. It seems odd to see them there, apparently so far inland, their tall stacks rising up among the trees. The Massachusetts and the Iowa were the first we passed, and we were all prepared to admire them heartily until told by our naval convoy that they are "obsolete." Passing by a pack of lean destroyers, leashed up like a kennel of hounds, we gazed at the gray profile of the Nevada. The steep chains perpending from her undercut prow we were told were for the use of the paravanes, and I think the ladies of the party were pleased not to be paravanes. The older destroyers—such as the Wainwright—are very small compared with the newer models; but it is curious that the outmoded types of battleship appear to the civilian eye more massive and towering than the latest superdreadnoughts. The Ohio,
