“ ‘And why, might I ask?’

“ ‘Well, don’t we produce distinguished Irishmen? Don’t we make Americans of the Europeans and Europeans of the Americans? Think of all the connoisseurs who wouldn’t buy a work of art in their own country when they could go to Europe and pay ten times its value for the pot-boilers that does be turned out in the studios of Paris and London.’

“ ‘There’s nothin’ like home industry,’ ses the whale, ‘in a foreign country, I mean.’

“ ‘After all, who knows anything about a work of art but the artist? and very little he knows about it, either. A work of art is like a flower, it grows, it happens. That’s all. An’ unless you charge the devil’s own price for it, people will think you are cheating them.’

“ ‘Wisha, I suppose the best any one can do is to take all you can get, an’ if you want to be a philanthropist, give away what you don’t want,’ ses the grasshopper.

“ ‘All worth missing I catches,’ ses the whale, ‘an’ all worth catchin’ I misses, like the fisherwoman who missed the fish and caught a crab. How’s things in Europe? I didn’t see the papers this morning.’

“ ‘Europe is in a bad way,’ ses the grasshopper. ‘She was preaching civilisation for centuries so that she might be prepared when war came to annihilate herself.’

“ ‘It looks that way to me,’ ses the whale. ‘Is there anything else worth while going on in the world?’

“ ‘There’s the Irish question,’ ses the grasshopper.

“ ‘Where’s that, Ireland is?’ ses the whale. ‘Isn’t that an island to the west of England?’

“ ‘No,’ ses the grasshopper, ‘but England is an island to the east of Ireland.’

“ ‘Wisha,’ ses the whale, ‘it gives me indigestion to hear people talking about Ireland. Sure, I nearly swallowed it up be mistake while I was on a holiday in the Atlantic last year, an’ I’m sorry now that I didn’t.’

“ ‘An’ I’m sorry that you didn’t try,’ ses the grasshopper. ‘Then you’d know something about indigestion. The less you have to say about Ireland the less you’ll have to be sorry for. Remember that me father came from Cork.’

“ ‘Can’t I say what I like?’ ses the whale.

“ ‘You can think what you like,’ ses the grasshopper, ‘but say what other people like if you want to be a good politician.’

“ ‘There’s nothin’ so much abused as politics,’ ses the whale.

“ ‘Except politicians,’ ses the grasshopper. ‘Only for the Irish they’d be no one bothering about poetry and the drama to-day. Only for fools they’d be no wise people an’ only for sprats, hake, and mackerel there ’ud be no whales, and’ a good job that would be, too.’

“ ‘What’s that you’re saying?’ ses the whale very sharply.

“ ‘Don’t have me to lose me temper with you,’ ses the grasshopper.

“ ‘Wisha, bad luck to your impudence an’ bad manners, you insignificant little spalpeen. How dare you insult your superiors?’ ses the whale.

“ ‘Who’s me superior?’ ses the grasshopper. ‘You, is it?’