The Flute
The unhappy man who succumbs to the fascinations of this instrument is never one who has attained the full development of his intellectual faculties. He always has a pointed nose, marries a short-sighted woman, and dies run over by an omnibus.
The flute is the most deadly of all instruments. It requires a peculiar conformation and special culture of the thumb-nail, with a view to those holes which have to be only half closed.
The man who plays the flute frequently adds to his other infirmities a mania for keeping tame weasels, turtle-doves, or guinea-pigs.
The Violoncello
To play the ’cello, you require to have long, thin fingers; but it is still more indispensable to have very long hair falling over a greasy coat-collar.
In case of fire, the ’cellist who sees his wife and his ’cello in danger will save the latter first.
His greatest satisfaction, as a general thing, is that of “making the strings weep.” Sometimes, indeed, he succeeds in making his wife and family do the same thing in consequence of a diet of excessive frugality. Sometimes, too, he contrives to make people laugh or yawn, but this, according to him, is the result of atmospheric influences.
He can express, through his loftily attuned strings, all possible griefs and sorrows, except those of his audience and his creditors.