The Trombone.
The man who plays on this instrument is always one who seeks oblivion in its society—oblivion of domestic troubles, or consolation for love betrayed.
The man who has held a metal tube in his mouth for six months finds himself proof against every disillusion.
At the age of fifty he finds that, of all human passions and feelings, nothing is left him but an insatiable thirst.
Later on, if he wants to obtain the position of porter in a gentleman’s house, or aspires to the hand of a woman with a delicate ear, he tries to lay aside his instrument, but the taste for loud notes and strong liquors only leaves him with life. Finally, after a harmonious career of seventy-eight years, he is apt to die of grief because the public-house keeper will not let him have a glass of wine on credit.