STRIKING A FEW OCTAVES! -By o. o. McIntyre— I have recently been taking piano lessons by mail. I had high hopes of being able to offer something In the way of a parlor trick when Invited out for the evening. I am Sone of those mental zeros to be found in almost any gathering where everybody else is merry and bright. I somehow manage to find the moet uncomfortable chair in the place and while the others exchange what is known in New Yorks as gossip and in Hollywood as dirt I just twiddle my thumbs. There comes a time when the hostess usually has a pang of sym pathy for me and tries to bright»n my evening by showing me a hand painted miniature of grandpop. Whenever they begin showing you miniatures it means that if you ever had an idea there was a wild strain in you and that you might become the life of the parly you were being kidded. You are just a social dud. So that is why I fell for the lure of a music by mail ad. The trouble with those birds is that they never give a sucker an even break. I thought in two weeks 1 would be able to play one of those dashing tunes they play at the movies. Vou know—"Launching of the S. 8. Colorado"—and then the close-up. 'The Governor’s Daughter.” But after a month 1 can’t even play "Blue Bells of Scotland” and 1 will be willing to trade all my music lessons for a couple of ani mal crackers. I don’t even know how to put on the loud pedal and the second Instalment on the piano Is due Tuesday. Defeated by the Villain. There was s time when I was something of a mandolin player. I used to sit out on the front porches with the girls, play, “1 Guess I’ll Have to Telegraph My Baby,” be served with one of those medicated bandage things known as a Jelly roll and a glass of milk and go home imagining I awas cat's cuff. About that time a new hotel clerk arlved from the city with an ac cordion and left us mandolin play ers high and dry. How we hated fellow . nere is something about a fel low who plays the piano the girls like. They cluster about him. fix I S'N'T HE JUST TOO, cure» rnij .. I ..........--...ss wssw iSWSi “Cake eaten are now known aa nx hounds." his tie. and pick fluff of his shoul der. He seems to wear a halo of romance. It might be—and often is—the only thing he can do, but he manages to have a dinner suit and be invited everywhere. I'm not knocking the mualc-by mail idea. There ' may be those who can master It in this fashion, but I'm not one of them. It was rather disconcerting to be at the dally practice just as a bellboy at my hotel came to deliver a package. I did a two finger exercise for his benefit and he said It was rather good. It’s Just a Gift. “I play a little myself.” he ven tured and I gave over the piano stool to him. He sat down and made the piano birtn. He had nev er taken a music lesson in his life and played entirely by ear. He even did some of those pieces where you cross your hands and run a few scales by ripping proc ess, with the index finger. If he had been a good strong boy I would have given him the piano to carry away with him. I wonder why it is you rarely find a real fat man who plays the piano. As a rule piano players are thin, rangey and have to stand twice to make a shadow. I sup pose if the fingers are pudgy you can't reach the octaves. Also you never find a fat pickpocket. If I can’t learn to play the piano I can at least sneer at those who do. Piano players should be started on their career early in life. I got away to a bad start. I took three lessons from the piano professor in our town. He charged 25 cents a lesson and made $20 a month ex tra by being the depot agent. Aft er the third lesson he got a regu lar job as a brakeman and left all the piano fledglings in town flat. Turning Back the Pages. I used to make quite a study of piano players in the old days of .the saloon back room. Just a soci ological study, of course. They were good tough lads who gave freely of their art for pitched nick els and free drinks^ They had a way of throwing one leg across the other sitting half sidewise and per mitting a rolled cigaret to hang loosely from their lips. They •’improvised" things and about the only exercise they got was shortly before the last round when they plopped off the stool to the floor in a sort of haze. Some times they slept on the pool table and other times where they hap pened to fall. The barkeeps spoke of them as "piano artists" and most of them had gold teeth and wore careless looking flannel shirts. I remember in the days when “Over the Rhine” in Cincinnati was a flourishing row of beer concert halls and the piano player was quite a fellow. If he looked over at your table and bowed a greeting you got about the same reaction that some people get when Belasco greets them in the lobby. Important, Yet Democratic. The beer hall pianist seemed to ua In those days as a personage. When the girl with the pale taffy hair sang her sentimental songs she had a way of flashing him a smile that rather made you envious. And the cross table comedians with green whiskers would speak to him familiarly as Eddie or Jimmie. Still, at that, he was democrtic and easy to meet. The offer to buy him a beer made him your friend. But that type of pia.-*-* - issed out with the saloon. Today they take their cue from Paderewski— wear flowing locks, flowing ties and handkerchiefs in their cuffs. They seem far above mundane things an# go in for atmosphere. The juvenile phenoma wear Lor# Kauntleroy suits and are as rare fully guarded as a dauphin. Whe» the needs of genius were planted they appear to have garnered the entire crop. in one of the great concert halls not long ago the pianist was ren dering one of those Intricate pieces. A woman in the balcony happened i to cough, lie stopped, snapped Into I a spell of hysteria and went shriek- 1 ing into the wings and it took sever- I al doctors to bring him around to his normal self. Of course, it was ail right. After all, th#e are tricks in all trades but you cannot help but think the lad lived for years in a tenement flat on the level with the elevated railroad where you have to close the windows to carry an ordinary conversation. And then for one suppressed little cough to upset him so Well it is daubing it on a bit thick. Girls who have to be coaxed *4 play the piano are a nuisance After persuading them you general ly find they have brought their music along and expected to play anyway and would have been hurt if they hadn’t been asked. Sax Hounds Hold Sway. Just now the saxophone business is putting a crimp in the popularity of the pianist. The fellow who can play a saxophone has the edge, especially in New York. And while I started talking about pianos there is r*o reason why a few paragraphs may not be de voted to the saxophone. There is, in the metropolis, an army of 16, 000 saxophone players. Every boy going to college now equips himself with one. Even old men. daunted by the chill indiffer ence that comes with years, are learning to give forth the moaning arias. And young girls carry them in stead of the uke. You can stir up a duplicate of the Six Brown Brothers in almost any gathering. In one night cafe there is a sign: "Patrons are not permitted to bring saxophones to the table." Cake enters are being referred to as sax hounds.” And they must be seen and heard to be ap preciated. (Copyright, liit) Latest Developments Resereh ami Invention Throughout World According to steam engineers, M takes 10 tons of black coal, turned into steam, to make one horse power. An all metal electric Incubator haa been Invented, to hold from 60 to 100 eggs. It is heated automat ically. A pitchfork with removable prongs, which can be replaced If broken, ha* been invented by a Ca nadian. A substitute for wool is being manufactured from cork in Spain. The cork is first treated with chem icals to remove any resinous sub stances and to make it flex.ble. The new anesthetic, made up of ethylene gas. is a derivative of coal tar. and is sn: ,st ened soil or vegetation growing on moistened soil They cannot be any thing else, for we know of no solid in the mineral world that darkens and then fades out again in the sunlight. Nor is it likely that they are strings cf animals. If there are nocturnal shi'wera on Mars these as they traveled along would leave narrow hands of moistened surface along which vegetation could spring up. If we assume Martians on th* other hand, with intelligence at least as gnat as that of ants, *hey might, for some reason chooae te plant the.: vegrtet n r. 1 r.g hard*.