"If ye understood, mam," said Mike Flannery, "ye would not say that
same, for to the flea professor th' flea is as big as a house. He
studies him throo a telescope, Mrs. Muldoon, that magnifies th' flea a
million times. Th' flea professor will take a dog with a flea on him,
mam, and look 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,