Little rays of moonshine

by A. P. Herbert

Mr. J. Common, is it? Is it every day you have a man coming from the dead that was three days and three nights in the belly of a whale?

Mrs. J. It is not—thanks be to God!

T. J. What ails you now, Bridget Ellen! Why wouldn’t we be altering the writing that is below the statue and write down this story about the whale, or any other fairy-story that he might be thinking of in the night and him lying awake—for sure it is a grand story and I wouldn’t wonder would the folk be travelling out from the big towns to see the man that was in the belly of a whale, when they wouldn’t walk across the road to see a man that gave his life for his fellow-travellers, and they English as like as not.

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?