“'Yes.'
“'In a bed of oysthers, may be!'
“'It was,' says he.
“'Oh! thin, well and good, sir,' says I; 'but what has Jimmy to do with the mermaid?'
“'Mick,' says he, 'the mermaid yourself saw below in the bay was him.'
“'Is it Jim?—And now I recollect—what's as true as that my daddy Jack's a corpse,—the mermaid, sure enough, had a carrotty pole, and two whiskers, and a big jacket, to say nothing of the bradien, though they wouldn't believe me,—so they wouldn't; but betuxt ourselves, sir, by this pipe in my fist, she was dacently clothed as meeself, barring the breeches. Oh! thin, divil a saw saw I of breeches about her; and her legs,—sure, and wasn't her legs a fish? and didn't meeself say so?'
“'Very well, Mick,' says he; 'I'll explain it to you:—a big blackguard of a shark, that was on a travelling tour, happened to be going that way when Jim's boat was upset, and gobbled him up just as he got into the water: but, lo and behould! whin he'd got Jim's legs down his throat, and came to his bradien and big belly, divil a swallow could the shark swallow him:—and there Jim stuck so fast, that if the shark had taken fifty emetics before-hand, he couldn't have cast him up.—With that, Jim, finding his situation unpleasant, began to kick; and the shark, with that, tickled Jim's ribs with his teeth; but he couldn't bite clane through his big coat,—and the more Jim kicked, the more the shark tickled him; and up they wint, and down they wint; and my belief is, that Jim would have bate him, but the fish got suffocated, and sunk, just as Jim was gitting a pull at the whiskey-bottle, which he carried in his side pouch; and down they wint together, so sudden, that Jim, taken up as he was with the taste of the crature, didn't know he was drowned till they were both at the bottom.'
“'Was Jimmy and the shark, the mermaid meeself saw thin?' says I.
“'They was, Mick.'
“'Thin bad luck to the pair o' them,' says I, 'for two impostors!—And how did your honour know this?'