"How do you account for its having made the hair grow on Mr. Plunket's head?" asked the Post Man. "How do I account for it?" repeated the barber in so dangerous a tone that the Post Man shuddered. "How do I account for it? I'll tell you how I account for it. I went out one day to where Mr. Plunket lived on the edge of town and asked for him. "'Which Mr. Plunket?' asked a man who came out to the gate? "'Come off,' I said, 'the Plunket that lives here.' "'They've both moved,' said the man. "'What do you mean by "both?"' I said, and then I began to think, and I said to the man: "'What kind of looking men were the Plunkets?' "'As much like as two peas,' said the man. 'They were twins, and nobody could tell 'em apart from their faces or their talk. The only difference between 'em was that one of 'em was as bald-headed as a hen egg and the other had plenty of hair.'" "Now," said the barber as he poured about two ounces of bay rum down the Post Man's shirt front, "that's how I account for it. The bald-headed Plunket would come in my shop one time and the one with hair would come in another, and I never knew the difference." When the barber finished the Post Man saw the African with the whisk broom waiting for him near the front door, so he fled by the back entrance, climbed a brick wall and escaped by a side street. (_Houston Daily Post_, Sunday morning, June 7, 1896.) Part Two: Sketches Did You See the Circus? Some Twenty Thousand Other People Were There WONDERS OF THE STREET PARADE The Good People Came Out to Show the Children the Animals A Good Parade If some man had cornered the children market day before yesterday, he could have made a fortune. Yesterday was circus day, and every deacon and elder and staid business man in Houston who wanted to see Mademoiselle Marie Meers ride barebacked and walk the tight rope, and had no kids of his own, was out offering love and money for somebody's else to take along as an excuse for going to the circus. In some New England towns large families make a living by renting out their children to church members for this purpose. When a man tells you that he doesn't believe in the Old Testament, just ask him what made him follow the band wagon and the steam piano and the animal cages when he was a boy, and what makes him still sneak into the circus and feed the elephant peanuts and stare the monkeys out of countenance. It's nothing in the world but a feeling we all inherited from Noah when he put on the greatest show on water for a run of forty nights and as many matinees all over the world. The smell of the gas jets and sawdust, the crack of the ring-master's whip, the ancient jokes of the clown, and the wonderful linguistic performances of the lemonade man are temptations that most of us strive to resist in vain.