business! For why I bring the educate flea to those States United? Is it
that they should be deathed? Is it that a Flannery should make them dead
with a--with such a thing like a pop-gun? Is it for these things I
educate, I teach, I culture, I love, I cherish those flea? Is it for
these things I give up wife, and patrie, and immigrate myself out of
dear France? No, my Jules! No, my Jacques! No, my madame! Ah, I am one
heart-busted!"

"Ah, now, professor," said Mrs. Muldoon, soothingly, "don't bawl
annymore. There is sure no use bawlin' over spilt milk. If they be dead,
they be dead. I wouldn't cry over a million dead fleas."

"The American flea--no!" said the professor, haughtily. "The Irish
flea--no! The flea _au naturel_--no! But the educate flea of _la belle
France_? The flea I have love, and teach, and make like a sister, a
sweetheart to me? The flea that have act up in front of the crowned
heads of Spain; that have travel on the ocean; that travel on the land?
Ah, Madame Muldoon, it is no common bunch of flea! Of my busted feelings
what will I say? Nothings! Of my banged-up heart, what will I say?
Nothings! But for those dead flea, those poor dead flea, so innocents,
so harmless, so much money worth--for those must Monsieur Flannery
compensate."

As the professor's meaning dawned on Mrs. Muldoon a look of amazement
spread over her face.

"And would be ye makin' poor Mike Flannery pay good money for thim
rascal fleas he kilt, and him with his ankles so bit up they look like
the small-pox, to say nothin' of other folks which is th' same?" she
cried. "'Tis ashamed ye should be, Mister Professor, bringin' fleas into