"He had been in that place six nights a week for many years, but had never been observed to raise an eye above his music-book... The carpenters had joked that he was dead without being aware of it... He never on any occasion had any other part in what was going on than the part written out for the clarionet; in private life where there was no part for the clarionet, he had no part at all... When they arrived there, they found the old man, in the corner of the room... All this time the uncle was doleful blowing his clarinet in the corner, sometimes taking it an inch or so from his mouth for a moment while he stopped to gaze at them, with vague a impression that somebody had said something... The clarionet had been lamenting most pathetically during this dialogue, but was cut short now by Fanny's announcement that it was time to go; which she conveyed to her uncle by shutting up his scrap of music, and taking the clarionet out of his mouth... At breakfast, Mr Frederick Dorrit likewise appeared. As the old gentleman inhabited the highest story of the palace, where he might have practised pistol shooting without chance of discovery by other inmates, his younger niece had taken courage to propose the restoration to him of his clarionet: which Mr Dorrit had ordered to be confiscated, but which she had ventured to preserve. Not withstanding some objections from Miss Fanny, that it was a low instrument, and that she detested the sound of it, concession had been made."