Evening star., 1901-05-04
PLAYED ONLY ONE PIECE

IN New York last week." said the Mt
Pleasant matron to the rest of the club be-
fore the progressive euchre session was un-
der way. "The matter had been puzzling
me for three years, and It was extremely
satisfactory to happen upon the solution
III have to begin at the beginning. Three
years ago my husband and / spent a cou-
pie OF the summer months at Atlantic City.
AS usual, there We're about five pretty girls
at our hotel to each fairly presentable
young man, and the competition, as a mat
ter OF course, was something fierce as
Jack says after spending a week in New
YORK. After we'd been at the hotel for q
couple Of weeks, however a really good
iooking young man came along and the way
the girls did dress for him and happened
accidentally to pass by him many
times on the veranda was astonish-
ing. He was a graceful young chap.
a bit theatrical looking, not unlike one of
the new style of leading men in the society
ofama and he certainly knew how to dress
himself He had large repertoire Of
fetching flannel suits and yachting caps
and sich like, and 1 suppose he was too
maddeningly glorious to the girls for any
use whatever in this life. He was a real
Trained from expending his grandeur upon
any one girl. He gave them all chance to
bask In his presence and avail themselves
OF his Ice cream soda water treats on the
or the girls at the hotel seemed actually to
hate each other before that young man had
been at the hotel week
Wei. one evening there was sort Of
entertainment in the hotel parlor. One of
the entertainers was late in coming, and
there was an embarrassing pause in the
program, and so the leading mannish-look-
ing young fellow strolled over to the piano
In an absent-minded way. pushed back his
nice, thick, wavy hair. while the girls muir
INJURED. Now, isn't he just too grand for
anything! and then he sat down gracefully
at the piano STOOL struck a rich minor
cnord and began playing RubfnSteinS s
Melody in F. He played it beautifi/y and
souifully, too, with his foot on the soft
pedal nearly all the time. The girls just
gasped with surprise to find their hero so
proficient performer. for he had never
told any Of them, it seems, that he could
do anything with the piano, and when he
finished the Melody the young women just
more than fiocked around him and lionzed
him. They all insisted, of course. that he
continue playing, but he languishingly tod
them that he was horribly out of practice,
and that he had only intended to be stop.
gap In the entertainment. He was still at
the hotel, buzzed around by the adoring
young women, when we left, but he never
played again on the piano. They all beg
ged him to play, but he put them off by
saying that 1T had been years since he had
had any sort of practice on the instrument.
They pouted over this, but it did them no
good-he didn't play again.
We'll, we went to Bensonhurst, n. Y,
for our summer vacation the following
year. and whom should We see as soon as
we arrived, but the Misunderstanding
young man Of the summer before, lolling
on the hotel portico with the girls, and
being made over just as much as ever. He
didn't see when we arrived. There
happened to be a parlor entertainment in
the hotel on the evening of our arrival,
and the young man, to our great astonish-
ment and beWilderment, went through the
identical performance at the piano that he
had executed SO successfully the summer
before at Atlantic City. He played the
Melody in +" with the same feeling and
expression, and received the tremendous
applause with which the performance was
greeted with the same bored, half-depre-
eating air. He still receiving con-
sratulations when he caught sight Of my
husband and me. He flushed Bit know
Melody in F. interpolation the summer be-
fore, but he came over and shook hands
and said nothing about it. He resisted all
of the appeals to do more pianoforte per-
forming while we remained In BenSonhurSt,
Notwithstanding the protestations Of the
girls that they We're Just wild to hear
him, and he was still pursuing his calm,
victorious course among all of the prettiest
maidens Of the village when we left.
Well my husband and l went to a vau-
deville show in New York at one of the
continuous performance houses last week,
and the headline number on the pro-
gram was one Of those things known as a
sketch. I had never heard of the two
head-liners. whose names were in big type
on the bill But as soon as the young
man came out in the drawing room scene
and began to race mp and down the stage
and complain about the long absence OF
his wife on her shopping expedition, both
my husband and knew him for our young
Melody in F" hero Of the two seaside re-
sorts. He went on complaining of his
wife's continued absence, and the fact that
his dinner wasn't ready. and then he sat
down at the piano and playedFoh, Of
course. you all know what he played. 1t
was the Melody in F. and he played it
superbly. He got vociferous hand from
the audience, but he wasn't compelled to
do any mora playing. for his wife in the
piece came rushing In just as soon as he
had finished his little stunt, and the sketch
progressed to its finish.
81 guess said my husband to me on
our way out. that that Rubinstein thing
that our young seaside chap played Is the
only bit on his musical menu. Ell"
II thought SO. too, by that time. On the
way out my husband met the manager Of
the theater, whom he knew, and we stood
talking for a few moments. AS we stood
in the lobby, who should enter the front en-
trance of the theater but our young seaside
hero, carrying heavy suit case, and the
rather dowdy little woman who had played
with him in the sketch at his side. He
went pretty scarlet but he came up to us
and shook hands very nicely. and intro
duced his wife. whom he had only recently
married. The wife got into conversation
with the manager, and then the young man
said to my husband and me in low tone:
~ suppose you both think I'm a colos-
sal bluff on the musical question. Well. I
am
"'How SOP we inquired. with great In
nocence.
"'Oh. you needn't spare me-, he replied
grinning. You're bound to know pretty
well by this time that that thing play Is
the. only one on my list. Years ago I was
determined to learn just one piece, and
spent a whole winter practicing just that
thing, and finally conquered it. but I
couldn't play the scales to save my soul.
There he concluded, I'm glad the cat 8
out Of the bag. for we three seem to be
fated to run across each other at all sorts
of places. However'-and he looked bit
rueful-I don't suppose you'll ever hear
me do that little counterfeit piece Of piano
work at the seaside any more-for L m mar
ried now"
An Eccentric Countess.
From the London Telegraph.
Some Of the eccentricities of the late
Comtesse de Castiglione have come out.
A. k1n % A0s