_Mrs. J._ It’s little the money I’ll be getting out of that, I’m thinking. _T. J._ And why will you not? It could be that them music-halls in the big towns and the theayters themselves would pay money to Michael Flannigan for no more than walking on the stage and telling the people what went on while he was in the whale--the same as they would for a cow that has five legs or the smallest woman in the world. Sure, didn’t they give Peter O’Flaherty three pounds for the loan of his duck that had no legs at all? _Mrs. J._ It could be that they might, Timothy James. _Mr. J._ There is money in them whales, ’tis true, and they full of whalebone, the same as the fine ladies do use in Dublin for their dress and all. And when I was smoking my tobacco-pipe in the whale, the oil did be running down the inside of the creature the way I was afeered he would take fire and the two of us be destroyed altogether. _T. J._ (_admiringly_). Did you ever hear the like of that? There’s them at the theayters that would pay you a mint of money for that same story, Michael Flannigan! _Mr. J._ They might so. _T. J._ But tell me now, Michael Flannigan, is it the truth or no that them whales have the queer small throats on them, the way they couldn’t swallow a little whiting, let alone a big man? It could be that one of them writing fellows would rise up in the theayter and say there was no man yet was swallowed by a whale, nor will be neither, because of the queer small throat they have on them! How would it be if you were to give it out that you were swallowed by a _big fish_, the way the ignorant folk would guess it was a whale and the people that do understand whales wouldn’t be able to say you were telling a lie? _Mr. J._ ’Tis a great head you have on you, Timothy James, and it’s sorry I am it was myself was in the whale and not you. _T. J._ Faith, ’tis glad I am I was never in a whale, for they do say they belong to the English King, the creatures, and God knows what may come of the like of that! _Mr. J._ Is it the King of England’s they are? Then, Glory be to God, I’ll have no more to do with them! _T. J._ Sure, and there’s nothing wrong with the King’s money, is there? And it’s plenty of that there will be, I’m thinking. I tell you, it’s the grand story they’ll make in the history-books till the world’s end of Michael Flannigan Joner that was ate by a whale! _Mrs. J._ And devil a word will they say of Bridget Ellen, his wife, that was married to a mad fellow. _T. J._ Let you not be vexing yourself now. I wouldn’t wonder would one of them writing fellows be writing a book about you, or maybe a play, and it’s the grand talk there will be of Joner’s wife at the latter end. _Mrs. J._ It might. (CURTAIN) The Mystery of the Apple-pie Beds (LEAVES FROM A HOLIDAY DIARY) I