P R E S T O-T I M E S
December 24, 1927
DAY AND NIGHT WORK
IN STRAUBE FACTORY
Dealers' Activities Are Making This a Big
Year for the Straube Piano Company,
Hammond, Ind.
THINGS SAID OR SUGGESTED
GOT HIS GOAT
We recently heard of a general storekeeper in
Pioche, Nev., who regularly collects a bag of gold
dust as the installment payment on a playerpiano
sold to a group of temperamental miners in the
mountains. It is a nice, clean medium of payment.
Some time ago, too, you possibly read the account
of the Oregon dealer who exchanged his pianos for
blushing apples, the kind the real estate men and
railroad people so temptingly display among the
other allurements for creating interest in that blessed
state. Also another acceptable form of installment
payments.
Both the Nevada and Oregon methods alluded to
are odd but not distressing, like the odd payment
once passed to Ion Arnold when he was manager of
F. G. Thearle & Co.'s branch at 455 63rd street,
Chicago.
Mr. Arnold sold a piano to Phelim Dougherty, a
Bridgeport resident employed as a puddler in the
rolling mills. The marriage of Phelim's only daugh-
ter was the occasion of the purchase. The gift of
the piano was a duty, he considered, although his
mind was tilled with misgivings at the maiden's
choice.
Phelim's son-in-law was a bird of passage, bril-
liant of plumage and gay of song. He was a phony
cowboy in an amusement park attraction who
couldn't distinguish a maverick from a muley cow
and whose experiences with the branding iron were
had in a box factory in Grand Rapids. Phelim's
instinctive fears for his girl's happiness were realized.
Too soon the phony cowboy showed his yellow
streak. Mean traits that invite the lead cure among
real cowmen soon evoked the objections of r the
rugged and manly old puddler. One morning words
were followed by blows and at the conclusion of a
short but primitive combat the fake cowboy, blinded,
battered and beaten, took the count.
When Phelim returned from work that evening,
prepared for the renewal of hostilities, no lights
from the battlements burned. The enemy and his
wife had evacuated. It was a complete change of
base. The furniture was gone, and with it the piano
recently bought on the installment plan from Mr,
Arnold.
Then, filled with the unsatisfied lust of battle,
Phelim launched upon an elemental toot; a frenzied,
truculent, scrap-filled period, at the end of which
he was moneyless and jobless. The affair of the
piano troubled him sorely. The disappearance of the
instrument shamed him and his inability to pay he
considered a blot on the escutcheon of the clan
Dougherty.
"I haven't a red cint to give ye 'till I get work,
Mr. Arnold,"' he explained to the piano man, "but
ye can have me lasht goat right today.''
"Nix on the live stock!" was the protest. "Keep
the goat. I know you enough. Phelim, to trust you
until you get back at the puddling."
Phelim, however, disregarded the protests. As
Mr, Arnold approached the store next morning he
saw a crowd that blocked traffic 011 63d street. Tied
to a telegraph pole in front of the piano store was
Phelim Dougherty's installment on the bridal gift
piano. It was a goat to be proud of, too, from the
goat fancier's point of view. Not a meek and placid
milk-giving nanny, but a goat of the sterner sex.
Tn short, a billygoat, big, strong masterful, aggres-
sive, with wild flowing whiskers and smelling to high
heaven with an odor that was pungent, acrid and
sneeze-compelling.
A colored man informed Mr. Arnold that Phelim
had tied the installment to the telegraph pole on
his way to Gary, Ind., to take a new puddling job.
Mr. Arnold was naturally embarrassed. The goat,
too, resented being used as currency. At intervals
he would drag himself to the full length of the rope,
lower his proud head and butt the telegraph pole
with a whack that made the wires buzz musically
like an aeolian harp. That performance he varied
by standing on his hind legs and dancing a tango
with himself or in turning handsprings and cart-
wheels for an ever-increasing crowd that whooped
encouragingly.
It was a plainly impossible payment. The fair
cashier shrieked at the bare suggestion of handling
it. The editor of the Englewood Times personally
presented public opinion and demanded that the
odorous credit amount be either locked in the safe
or lodged in the bank. The traffic of a busy thor-
oughfare couldn't be blocked because somebody paid
a piano installment.
Mr. Arnold thereupon decided to remove the
horned currency from circulation in the neighbor-
hood. He hired the colored citizen to man the rope
and two others to steer with a hold on the horns
and thereby take Billy away up back o' the yards
and lose him.
* * *
A splendid thing about the artist-made reproducing
piano roll is that it has no temperament and so is
always agreeable when required for use.
Before going into business in a turbulent belt equip
yourself with a mud guard.
* * *
The trouble is when the piano customer discovers
he is a piano victim.
BUYS IN SOUTH BEND, IND.
Gail E. Rush and Russell F. Moran have pur-
chased the Wurlitzer Musical agency at 128 North
Michigan street, South Bend, Ind., and will operate
the business under the name of Rush & Morau. They
will incorporate a company under the incorporating
laws of Indiana to deal in pianos and other musical
instruments. The new company will be the repre-
sentative of the well known Wurlitzer musical in-
struments.
Straube distributors are receiving a letter dictated
by H. A. Stuart, sales manager of the Straube Piano
Company, Hammond, Ind., which reads as follows:
To Straube Distributors:
Gentlemen-—Orders for the balance of 1927 re-
quirements should be placed now.
Many of our departments are working overtime
and a night force has for several weeks been in active
operation.
We want to take proper care of all our merchants.
We want no one to be disappointed. If you need
goods or will need goods shortly, please tell us now;
write, or wire at our expense.
If you have orders entered for which there is an
immediate rush, please notify us of the emergency,
as we want to cooperate.
Your activity is making this a big year for Straube.
Straube national advertising appears in the Decem-
ber issues of the following great magazines, which
combined, are known throughout America as the
"Quality Group":
The Atlantic Monthly, the Golden Book, Harper's
Magazine, Review of Reviews, Scribner's and World's
Work. Mr. Stuart says:
Tn these magazines we tell the people about the
Straube and now we want to cooperate with you to
tell them that you are the one in your vicinity who
handles the Straube they are reading about.
Great big reprints of these ads have been sent to
you for window and store display. If you can use
more, advise us.
We will send you newspaper mats or electros,
gratis, already set up ready for insertion just like
the enclosed samples. These newspaper cuts tie
up with Straube December advertising; they carry
the same message and they will have your name on
them.
The Straube Piano Company is busy this week
getting out rush orders, while not neglecting to take
care of others who are not in so much of a hurry.
OPENS IN GUTHRIE, OKLA.
E. A. Andrews and Ross Doolittle have joined part-
nership in the formation of a new music store 111
Guthrie, Okla., which will be known as The Guthrie
Music Company, and will be located at 110 South
First, in the west room of the Fitzpatrick building.
The partners are well known all over the county.
Guthrie is their home, and it is their intention to ex-
tend to the community a musical service in musical
instruments and sheet music that will meet the public
needs. Mr. Doolittle is a natural born musician and
his talent is applied to almost every instrument.
OPENS IN WASHINGTON
Francis S. Harris, widely known in the music
trade, has opened a finely-equipped store at 2900
Fourteenth street, X. W., Washington, D. C, under
the name of F. S. Harris Co., Inc. Mr. Harris has
been in charge of the store of the Mount Pleasant
Music Shop, 3310 Fourteenth street, N. W., since its
inception several years ago, prior to which he was
Washington representative of Cohen & Hughes,
Victrola wholesalers, of Baltimore.
James Hare, an Englishman, was the first patentee
of a music stool in England. The date was 1852.
BOWEN PIANO LOADER HELPS SALESMEN
Outside Salesmen must be equipped so as to "show the goods." The season for country piano selling is approaching. Help your sales-
men by furnishing them with the New Bowen Piano Loader, which serves as a wareroom far from the store. Tt is the only safe
delivery system for dealers, either in city or country. It costs little. Write for particulars.
BOWEN PIANO LOADER CO.,
Winston-Salem, N. C.
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