The Clarionet.
This instrument consists of a severe cold in the head, contained in a tube of yellow wood.
The clarionet was not invented by the Conservatoire, but by Fate.
A chiropodist may be produced by study and hard work; but the clarionet player is born, not made.
The citizen predestined to the clarionet has an intelligence which is almost obtuse up to the age of eighteen—an epoch of incubation, when he begins to feel in his nose the first thrills of his fatal vocation.
Then his intellect—limited even then—ceases its development altogether; but his nasal organ, in revenge, assumes colossal dimensions.
At twenty he buys his first clarionet for fourteen francs; and three months later his landlord gives him notice. At twenty-five he is admitted into the band of the National Guard.
He dies of a broken heart on finding that not one of his three sons shows the slightest inclination for the instrument with which he has blown all his wits.
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.