There is always something amusing to look at as you pass along. There stands the nervous old lady upon the street corner. She wishes to ride, and endeavors to signal the driver and prepare for embarking at one and the same time. She proves the truth of the old saying that a person may get too many irons in the fire. In her eagerness to attract the attention of the driver or conductor, she is not aware that in lifting her skirts she has elevated one or two thicknesses more than she intended, or than is at all necessary. Poor old lady! She does indeed present a picture that might well attract the artistic eye. We in more becoming order turn our eyes from the singular spectacle and study the advertisements ranged around for our special benefit. She emits a short, quick cry, half whoop and half squeal, and signals repeatedly, to do which the inevitable umbrella is brought into requisition, and flourished around her head as though she was warding off a detachment of aggressive wasps. She gives the conductor a look of surprise, if not anger, because he completes the curve before stopping to take her up. The old lady means business, and has never got it through her head that conductors have rights which she is bound to respect. She no doubt believes that on all occasions and at all times he ought to seize the strap and stop the car as suddenly as he would a clock by grasping the pendulum. Then there are the fashions which we can study without having to pay exorbitant prices for seats in the theatres. It is even better than to go to a fashionable church. Besides the advantages which a ride in the street car offers us in the way of studying the fashions, we often see strange sights, well calculated to awaken humor. There, for instance, we encounter the sleepy passenger, who, in charity let us hope, is drowsy through loss of rest, rather than loss of reason! Let us hope he is some physician who has been attending to his patients; or a minister of the gospel who has spent the night by the bedside of some sinking penitent; or a supervisor, who—while his constituents have been snugly dreaming away their troubles—has been legislating, and growing hoarse declaiming for the public good. Doctor or supervisor, as the case may be, it is evident he is sleepy, and cares not who knows it. Otherwise he would pick up his hat, which has fallen off, before it has twice been stepped on by passengers staggering through the car while it is in motion. With a persistency truly amusing he tips in the direction of some old lady, who apparently hates men, especially when excessive drowsiness makes them familiar. He, however, is oblivious of her likes or dislikes, even of her presence, it would seem. [Illustration: RATHER “SLOROPPY.”]