The age-herald., 1900-11-13
SKETCHES FROM
 EVERYDAY LIFE

The man who has music in his soul but who cannot afford piano or other musical instrument with which to extract 1t. need not despair There is musical apparatus to suit all tastes and all pocket books.
 Probably one of the most inexpensive musical appliances that could be devised, is what at the Morris Hotel was ex- hibiting the otker night This consisted of a row of twelve glass tumblers tackled down to board and filled with different quan- titles of water to produce the different notes. He then took two bone handles of a couple of worn-out toothbrushes, and made music to beat many band. It was the tinkle tinkle order somewhat similar to a xylophone.
 When he grew tired of this kind of sound he laid aside the toothbrush handles, and dipping his fingers in the water proceeded to make far-off mellow sounding music, by simply drawing his fingers across the rims of the goblets Most anybody can get hold of a dozen gobets, some water and two or three wet fingers and soothe their nerves with watery melody.
 For those who can afford the piano but cannot afford their neighbors i'll will by at tempting to play 1t, the pianola, an inven- tion of recent years, is a remarkably good substitute for educated fingers. This is evil dently American invention. No one but an American with his natural genius for mechanics would ever have thought of playing piano by machinery. When these devices first came or the market they were naturally more or less imperfect and the playing could only be described by the word mechanical. In recent years they have been greatly improved, like bicycles, sew ing machines, etc, and they can now be ob- tained so perfectly adjusted that the play ing sounds good and true. The trouble here tofore has been that the playing was too good to be true.
 This is not only good device for those who like the piano, but those who play the violin and need an accompanist to cover up their mistakes can use the pianola for this purpose A pianola, unlike d human accom- panist, tells no tales there is no danger in the Kreutzer Sonata, there is nothing for a man to fall in love with, and the violin ist can play, do and say whatever he pleases with d feeling of complete immun- ity from breach of promise suits
 Speaking of violinists" said a guest at lle MOTHS last once uedru d story illustrating that for ways that are dark and for tricks that are not always vain, the violinist can give the heather Chinee les son.
 'It is generally supposed that a violinist loves his violin like a mother her child, and will never part with it except under the stress of adversity. It is also generally thought that the older, more battered and fli faII 1I;. yoI uable 1t is. This is according to the same reasoning that good jokes live to grow old, and the bad ones die young. Even new violins, especially, the cheap ones, are stained to look old.
 "A violnist went into pawn shop on Baxter street carefully holding such a violin under his arm. He explained to the pawn broker that his violin was very valuable, that he had in fact refused $500 for it, but that he was temporarily in need of funds and could he loan him $5 on it, which would be repaid the following day. The pawn broker agreed and loaned the money, the violinist begging him to take the utmost care of the instrument.
 ''The next day. true to his promise the violine, carefully examined 1t to see that
 
 "A few days afterwards he came back and this time borrowed $25. The same per- formance was gone through as before, the violnist almost shedding tears at the thought of leaving his violin; nothing but the utmost need for the money would force him to part with 1t moment and he promised faithfully to redeem it on the morrow.
 time however The pawn broker waited day or two when the violinist, not appearing, he became un- easy. He put his hat, took the violin down from the shelf and hurried round to a violin manufacturer whom he knew. He showed him the violin and asked him what 1t was worth.
 'I hardly know,'' said the manufacturer. '"rhe violin is considerably scratched up, but when new we sell the same violin at SIP dozen.''
 I'm the Prophet of the Utterly Absurd,
 Of the Patiently Impossible and Vain And when the Thing that Couldn't has oc-
 cured,
 Give me time to change my leg and go
 again.
 These are some of the many ideas sug- gested to Kiplng by the banjo. It is hard to conceive why this unmusical instrument should have been the subject of one of the finest poems in the language. It only shows that a poet can use poor subject as a preacher a poor text. Great poems and great sermons depend more on the man behind the text, than the text itself.
 Any one write verse or two about the rose the violet love or the snow. Such for instance is the first poem we all learn are red ViOletS blue. etc. Then there is snow, beautiful snow, and whole libraries describing how love comes like a summers dream, and the various other ways love comes and goes.
 But there is only one poem on the banjo. What a fabulous price Kipling's spectacles will brinp when he's dead-that is if any