“Don’t believe there is. Well, let’s go take something anyhow.”
The lights are beginning to burn in the show windows, and people are gathering in front of them.
To many of the lookers-on this gazing in the windows is all the Christmas pleasure they will have. Many of them are from the country and little towns along the fourteen lines of railroad that run into Houston. A country youth presses through the crowd with open mouth and wondering eyes. Holding fast to his hand, follows Araminta, bedecked in gorgeous colors, beholding with scarce-believing optics the fairy-like splendors of Main Street. When they return to Galveston they will long remember the glories of the great city they visited at Christmas.
A solemn man in a high silk hat, attired in decorous black, edges his way along the sidewalk. One would think him some city magnate making his way home, or a clergyman out studying the idiosyncrasies of human nature. He opens his mouth and yells in a high, singsong voice: “What will mamma say when Willie comes home with a mustache just like papa’s—buy one right now, boys; you can curl ’em, twist ’em, pull ’em, and comb ’em just like real ones—come on boys!” He fixes below his nose a black mustache with a wonderful curl to the ends and goes his way, occasionally selling one to some smooth-faced boy, who shyly makes his purchase. On the edge of the sidewalk a little man is offering “the most wonderful mechanical toy of the century, causing more comment and excitement than any other article exhibited at the great World’s Fair.” The public crowds about him and buys with avidity. Not twenty steps away in a Houston toy shop the same kind of toy has been sold for years.
On a corner stand a group of—well, say young men. They wear new style high turn-down collars and chrysanthemums. Their hats tilt backward and their front hair is brushed down low. They are gazing at the ladies as they pass. How Charles Darwin would have loved to meet these young men! But, alas! he died without completing the chain. Listen at the scraps of alleged conversation that can be distinguished above their simultaneous jabber:
“Deuced fine girl, but a little too—cigarette? I’ll owe you one—she’s a nice girl, but—the loveliest necktie you ever—would have paid my board, but saw that elegant suit at—kicked me clear out of the parlor without—that girl has certainly got a—haven’t a cent, old man, or I would—old man said I had to go to work, but—look at that blonde with the smiled right at me, and—the little one with the blue—he struck me in the eye, and I won’t speak to him now—no, the brunette in the white—I was real mad, and said, confound it—link buttons, of course.”