at th' same with his telescope, and th' flea will be ten
times th' size of th' dog."

"'Tis wonderful!" exclaimed Mrs. Muldoon.

"It is so!" agreed Mike Flannery. "But 't is by magnifyin' th' flea that
th' professor is able t' study so small an insect for years and years,
discoverin' new beauties every day. One day he will be studyin' th'
small toe of th' flea's left hind foot, and th' next day he will be
makin' a map of it, and th' next he will be takin' a statute of it in
plaster, an th' next he will be photygraftin it, and th' next he will be
writin' out all he has learned of it, and then he will be weeks and
months correspondin' with other flea professors in all parts of th'
worrld, seein' how what he has learned about th' little toe of th'
flea's left hind foot agrees with what they have learned about it, and
if they don't all agree, he goes at it agin, and does it all over agin,
and mebby he dies when he is ninety years old and has only got one leg
of th' flea studied out. And then some other professor goes on where he
left off, and takes up the next leg."

"And do they get paid for it?" asked Mrs. Muldoon, with surprise.

"Sure, they do!" said Flannery. "Good money, too. A good specialist
professor gits more than an ixpriss agent. And 't is right they sh'u'd,"
he added generously, "for 't is by studyin' th' feet of fleas, and such,
they learn about germs, and how t' take out your appendix, and 'Is
marriage a failure?' and all that."

"Ye dumbfounder me, Mike Flannery," said Mrs. Muldoon. "Ye should have
been one of them professors yourself, what with all the knowledge ye
have. And ye think 't would be a good thing t' let th' little Frinchmin
come and take a room?"

"'T would be an honour to shake him by th' hand," said Mike Flannery,
and so the professor was admitted to the board and lodging of Mrs.
Muldoon.

The name of the professor who, after a short and unfruitful season at
Coney Island, took lodging with Mrs. Muldoon, was Jocolino. He had shown
his educated fleas in all the provinces of France, and in Paris itself,
but he made a mistake when he brought them to America.

The professor was a small man, and not talkative. He was, if anything,
inclined to be silently moody, for luck was against him. He put his
baggage in the small bedroom that Mrs. Muldoon allotted to him, and much
of the time he spent in New York. He had fellow countrymen there, and he
was trying to raise a loan, with which to buy a ca