“‘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 canvas booth in which to show his educated insects.  He received the friendly advances of Flannery and the other boarders rather coldly.  He refused to discuss his specialty, or show Mike the toe of the left hind foot of a flea through a telescope.  When he remained at home after dinner he did not sit with the other boarders on the porch, but walked up and down the walk, smoking innumerable cigarettes, and thinking, and waving his hands in mute conversations with himself.

“I dunno what ails th’ professor,” said Mrs. Muldoon, one evening when she and Flannery sat at the table after the rest had left it.

Flannery hesitated.

“I would not like to say for sure, mam,” he said, slowly, “but I’m thinkin’ ‘t is a loss he has had, maybe, that’s preyin’ on his mind.  Ever since ye told me, Missus Muldoon, that he was a professor of th’ educated fleas, I have had doubts of th’ state of th’ mind of th’ professor.  Th’ sense of studyin’ th’ flea, mam, I can understand, that bein’ th’ way all professors does these days, but ‘t is not human t’ spend time givin’ a flea a college education.  Th’ man that descinds t’ be tutor t’ a flea, and t’ teach it all th’ accomplishments, from readin’ and writin’ t’ arithmetic and football, mebby, is peculiar.  I will say he is dang peculiar, Missus Muldoon, beggin’ your pardon.  Is there any coffee left in the pot, mam?”

“A bit, Mr. Flannery, an’ you ‘re welcome t’ it.”

“I understand th’ feelin’ that makes a man educate a horse, like that Dutchman I was readin’ about in th’ Sunday paper th’ other day,” said Mike, “and teachin’ it t’ read an’ figger, an’ all that.  An’ I can see th’ sinse of educatin’ a pig, as has been done, as you well know, mam, for there be no doubt a man can love a horse or a pig as well as he can love his own wife—­”

“An’ why not a flea?” asked Mrs. Muldoon. “’T is natural for an Irishman t’ love a pig, if ‘t is a pig worth lovin’, and ’t is natural, I make no doubt, for a Dutchman t’ love a horse th’ same way, and each t’ his own, as th’ sayin’ is.  Mebby th’ Frinch can learn t’ love th’ flea in th’ same way, Mr. Flannery.”