For in spite of his tact and discretion
There is fixed in the popular mind
A wholly mistaken impression
That the whale is abrupt and unkind.

And it's simply because of the prophet
Who got into a ship for Tarshish
But was thrown (very properly) off it
And swallowed alive by "a fish."

Now I should not, of course, have contested
The material truth of the tale
If the prophet himself had suggested
That the creature at fault was a whale.

But the prophet had no such suspicion,
And that is convincing because
He was constantly in a position
To see what the miscreant was.

And this is what punctures the bubble,
As JONAH, no doubt, was aware:
"A _fish_" was the cause of the trouble,
But the whale is a _mammal_. So there!

A. P. H.

* * * * *