The pompous man gets into the carriage; the driver mounts to his seat, whips up his horses, drives across the street, fully twenty-five yards away, opens the door and says: "Lawlor Hotel, sir; 50 cents, please." He gets a dollar instead, and promises to say nothing about it. The carriages and omnibuses rattle away with their loads; other travelers straggle in for the next train, and when it arrives the Grand Central will repeat its little farce comedy with new actors, and new specialties and various readings between the lines. (_Houston Daily Post_, Monday morning, December 16, 1895.) Christmas Eve Some Sights and Sounds Caught on Houston Streets and Elsewhere Houston is a typical Southern town. Although a busy, growing city that is easily holding its place among the half dozen metropolitan cities of the South, it retains most of the old-time Southern customs and traditions. The all-absorbing haste, the breathless rush, the restless scramble for gain so noticeable in Northern cities is absent here. Houston people are prosperous, and they take things easy, believing that one may gather a few roses of pleasure on the way through life and still keep up with the march of progress. In no city in the South is Christmas more merrily welcomed with social pleasures, the exchanging of friendly offerings, and general rejoicing than in Houston. The immense crowds of people that have lined our streets and stores for the past week testify to the fact. Yesterday was probably the busiest day among the merchants that the season has witnessed; and there is no question but that it brought to the children anticipations of the brightest nature. Stand for a few moments on the corner and view the people. They are moving like a colony of ants, some going, some coming, threading in and out in an endless tangled maze. When the gods lean over the edge of Mount Olympus and gaze down upon this world, while the waiter is out filling their glasses with nectar, they must be highly entertained by the little comedy that is holding the boards on earth. Our world must look to them very much as a great ant bed, over which we crawl and scramble, and run this way and that, apparently without purpose or design. That light streak across the sky, which we call the Milky Way, is nothing more nor less than the foam spilt from tankards of nectar as the gods quaff and laugh at our strange antics. But it is Christmas eve, and what do we care for their laughter? Turn up the lights; let the curtain rise, and the Christmas crowd is on! * * * * * Did you ever watch a young lady buy a Christmas present for her father? If not, you have missed a good thing.