f the
Sporting Extra.

"Mr. Tescheron, please tell me," said the reporter, "in just what
part of the whale Jonah lived for three days. My paper wants the true
story, with such Biblical data as may bear upon it, interpreted by
the higher criticism of the Fish Market. I want to get an interior
view of the apartments he lived in by flashlight or the X-ray, so as
to print the Jonah story right up to date. There were none of our men
present, you understand, when the thing happened."

"The belly of the whale is commodious, as you may see," replied Mr.
Tescheron, pointing to the spot with his cane. "Here we have the
probable position of Jonah, seated with a knee against each ear and
his hands clasped over his ankles. Now this episode as narrated
plainly tells us that Jonah was 'swallowed up;' he wasn't chewed up,
but swallowed whole, and from such investigations as I have made,
studying whales before and after meals, and from what I know of the
layout of the interior occupied by Jonah, he sat, as I say, a solid
chunk of a man which no whale could digest. Now you know the whale is
a regular submarine vessel equipped the same as those divers of our
navy, with a perfect outfit of air valves. You must remember reading
that this fish was prepared for the special business of swallowing
Jonah, and for no other purpose. The whale comes up at regular
intervals and blows the water out of his air-tight compartments and
sucks in a fresh air supply--enough to last him and two or three more
passengers, so that Jonah, it may be seen, had no trouble at all to
breathe, and agreed with the whale until the whale was beached, while
asleep, at low water. The lack of all rolling motion in the land, and
the fact that an uneven keel made Jonah claw around more than usual,
made the whale land-sick. A whale can throw a stream from its snout
for about five rods, but when it strikes land that way under heavy
ballast it chucks all its load, water and solids, like a torpedo
hitting a ship. I have experimented with small whales--say from ten
to twenty feet over all, and never knew one to miss when he bumped
land. The whale was prepared especially to do that--to release Jonah,
and does it with wonderful automatic economy--the same that we
scientific men note throughout nature. If the people who laugh at
this story of Jonah would watch whales a little