“Yes!” replied the child, sobbing, “he did call me an ass,—and then——”
“Well,—and then—what else?”
“He said, ‘Well, after all, it is no wonder—like father, like son!’”
“Did he, indeed? the animal!” exclaimed the pork-butcher. “And to think that perhaps he has not yet eaten the whole of those two sausages I sent him at Christmas!”
Antonio Ghislanzoni.
MEN AND INSTRUMENTS.
We have been told over and over again that “the style is the man.”
I would substitute for this “The instrument is the man.”
And whereas the proverb runs, “Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are,” I would amend it thus, “Tell me what you blow into or scrape upon, and I will tell your fortune.”
After this, I must request professional gentlemen, employed in orchestras and otherwise, not to suspect any malicious intent in my remarks, which are principally aimed at amateurs—those who murder some instrument or other out of pure conviction,—all who began to twang the guitar when they were studying medicine, or to practise on the cornet after a year’s experience of matrimony.