“‘Of course, we can do what we please with them, and I think you deserve a raise in your wages for conceiving such a wonderful idea,’ ses the King. ‘Not only would we do our people a great justice by providing them with the very best kind of victuals, but we would save them funeral expenses besides.’
“‘That’s so,’ ses Cormac, ‘and any true philosopher must know that ’tis better that we should eat each other than that the worms should eat us. Anyway,’ ses he, ‘’twill be all the same in a hundred years, as the Duke of Argyle said to the Leprechaun.’
“Well, the new law was duly enforced, and the age limit reduced to suit circumstances, and in less than ten years there wasn’t any one left but Cormac and the King.”
“Bedad, that’s a strange story,” said Micus. “I knew that an Irishman could become anything from a poet to a policeman, but I never heard of one becoming a cannibal before.”
“Cormac didn’t become a cannibal at all,” said Padna.
“And how did he escape?” said Micus.
“He escaped by becoming a vegetarian the very day the law came into force,” said Padna. “He just wanted to go home to Ireland, and he was afraid he’d have an uneasy conscience, if any of his subjects were left exposed to the dangers of a foreign country, and that was how he secured peace of mind before shaking the dust of Montobewlo off his heels.”
“And what happened to the King?” asked Micus.
“As he was seeing Cormac off by the good ship Ennisferric that was bound for Cork’s fair city, he slipped off the gangway, and when they went to look for him, they could only find a crocodile in the throes of indigestion,” said Padna.