"How did Jonah come into the case?" I asked.
"Just this way, my opponent said the Bible contained two versions of the story, one by St. Matthew, and the other by St. Mark. St. Matthew's account was that Jonah made the entire voyage inside the whale, while St. Mark declared that Jonah came out occasionally and sat on the whale's back to get a breath of fresh air."
"Dear me," said the presiding judge. "That version of the voyage of Jonah sounds strange to me. I suppose you can give chapter and verse for it. If you can, I wish you would."
"He can do no such thing, your Honor," said I. "There is no account in the Bible that tells of Jonah riding on the whale's back."
My opponent glanced from one to the other of us contemptuously, and then looked significantly at the jury.
"Gentlemen of the jury," he said solemnly. "I am not addressing my remarks to this Honorable Court, nor to the learned gentleman on the opposite side of this case, whose lamentable ignorance regarding one of the most familiar Scriptural narrations, I sincerely deplore."
"In drawing a parallel between the suspiciously coinciding character of the evidence here given by two witnesses, who apparently have compared notes with extreme care, and the discrepancies shown in the statements of two great inspired writers, I am directing my remarks to intelligent, upright men, who study their Bibles, and who have the great truths of Scripture at their finger ends."
"You should have seen how that bench of hoboes nodded complacently as that audacious lawyer insulted the Court and me. The upshot of the whole business was that I lost my case, and all through not knowing what St. Matthew and St. Mark wrote about Jonah."
I could scarcely keep from laughing while my friend was telling the story, but at this point, I broke out in a prolonged fit of merriment.