IT'S A LONG LANE

Complete orientation is impossible in Boston because in the first place Boston is built on different lines and in the second place such a claim to fame would necessitate a personal knowledge of every bud on the glass flowers in Cambridge and an ability to cross Washington street without fear or trembling. The confident Freshman whose savoir-faire considerably outweighs his rational aculties may believe that a journey down the long white trek to Andrews Square or a nook in the attic of the Boston Opera House should entitle him to the keys of the city and a bed in the State House. The established order of things is, however, much different. The day is past when one could romp gaily through every Middlesex village and town and then retire to a noble posterity; a thorough knowledge of the knowledge of the highways and byways of Boston is now a profession in itself.

Maps mean very little if anything in relation to getting where one wants to so, because inevitably one finds oneself back where one started, in exactly the same spot only several hours later. The best, course of action, therefore is if one can afford it, a taxi, thus enabling a person to see many quaint spots of the city and to experiment in the naive taxi rates in Boston, a system which has its basis on the theories that every movement of the meter has a meaning all its own, that cobblestones and hills increase the distance in dollars and lessen the distance in space, and that the longest way round is the shortest way home. for the pedestrian--for who is not? there is always the river. Follow the river, says the oldest settler, and one can't go wrong. Such may be the case but neither can one arrive at any definitely placed objective. And so, in the end, the adventurer is stranded by his fireside, alone with his books and his memories.