Munchausen took a long breath and for the moment was silent.
"Well, Ananias," said he. "We resolved to wait. As the Captain said to me, 'Fishin' is waitin'.' So we waited. 'Coax him along,' said the Captain. 'How can we do it?' I asked. 'By kindness,' said he. 'Treat him gently, persuasive-like and he'll come.' We waited four days and nobody moved and I grew weary of coaxing. 'We've got to do something,' said I to the Captain. 'Yes,' said he, 'Let's _make_ him move. He doesn't seem to respond to kindness.' 'But how?' I cried. 'Give him an electric shock,' said the Captain. 'Telegraph him his mother's sick and may be it'll move him.' 'Can't you get closer to him?' I demanded, resenting his facetious manner. 'I can, but it will scare him off,' replied the Captain. So we turned all our batteries on the sea. The dynamo shot forth its bolts and along about four o'clock in the afternoon there was the whale drawn by magnetic influence to the side of _The Lyre_. He was a beauty, Ananias," Munchausen added with enthusiasm. "You never saw such a whale. His back was as broad as the deck of an ocean steamer and in his length he exceeded the dimensions of _The Lyre_ by sixty feet."
"And still you got him on deck?" I asked,--I, Ananias, who can stand something in the way of an exaggeration.
"Yes," said Munchausen, lighting his cigar, which had gone out. "Another storm came up and we rolled and rolled and rolled, until I thought _The Lyre_ was going to capsize."
"Didn't have a chance to be," said Munchausen. "I was thinking of the whale all the time. Finally there came a roll in which we went completely under, and with a slight pulling on the line the whale was landed by the force of the wave and laid squarely upon the deck."
"Great Sapphira!" said I. "But you just said he was wider and longer than the yacht!"
[Illustration: "There was the whale drawn by magnetic influence to the side of _The Lyre_." _Chapter II._]
"He was," sighed Munchausen. "He landed on the deck and by sheer force of his weight the yacht went down under him. I swam ashore and the whole crew with me. The next day Mr. Whale floated in strangled. He'd swallowed the thousand yards of line and it got so tangled in his tonsils that it choked him to death. Come around next week and I'll give you a couple of pounds of whalebone for Mrs. Ananias, and all the oil you can carry."