tretch and fall
down dead an inch from the finish. If I went into a stock speculation,
I was invariably caught on a rising or a falling market. In my youth I
spoiled every yachting-party I went on by attracting a gale. When I came
out the moon went behind a cloud, and people who began by endorsing my
paper ended up in the poor-house. Commerce wouldn't have me. Boards of
Trade everywhere repudiated me, and I gradually sank into that state of
despair which finds no solace anywhere but on the sea or in politics,
and as politics was then unknown I went to sea. The result is known
to the world. I was cast overboard, ingulfed by a whale, which, in his
defence let me be generous enough to say, swallowed me inadvertently
and with the usual result. I came back, and life went on. Finally I
came here, and when it got to the ears of the authorities that I was in
Hades, they sent me back for the fourth time to earth in the person of
William Shakespeare.

That is the whole of the Jonah story. It is a sad story, and I regret
it; and I am sorry for the impostor when I reflect that the character he
has assumed possesses attractions for him. His real life must have
been a fearful thing if he is happy in his impersonation, and for his
punishment let us leave him where he is. Having told the truth, I
have done my duty. I cheerfully resign my claim to the personality he
claims--I relinquish from this time on all right, title, and interest in
the name; but if he ever dares to interfere with me again in the use of
my personal recollections concerning the inside of whales I shall hale
him before the authorities.

And now, finally, I come to Shakespeare, whom I have kept for the last,
not because he was the last chronologically, but because I like to work
up to a climax.

Previous to my existence as Baron Munchausen I lived for a term of years
on earth as William Shakespeare, and what I have to say now is more in
the line of confession than otherwise.

In my boyhood I was wild and I poached. If I were not afraid of having
it set down as a joke, I should say that I poached everything from eggs
to deer. I was not a great joy to my parents. There was no deviltry in
Stratford in which I did not take a leading part, and finally, for the
good of Warwickshire, I was sent to London, where a person of my talents
was more likely to find congenial and appreciative surroundings. A
glance at such of my autographs as are now extant will demonstrate the