CHAPTER XV.
Lovely Anthony’s Communion Service all by Himself.—How he Formed a Society for the Suppression of Vice, and the Propagation of the Gospel of the Club.—Their Vicious Methods of Promoting Virtue.—Their Success at Dog Catching.
Illustration: LOVELY ANTHONY THUMPEM CLUBSTOCK - ILLUSTRATED LETTER ‘E’.
EMINENT over all the crowd of Morality Cobblers and Dog Soulers and Healers who sat in the Church of the Fleas and looked upon the Portrait, was one whose brain had been particularly well embalmed and hermetically sealed against the entrance of any new idea. This was Lovely Anthony Thumpem Clubstock. He was a great admirer of the Portrait; and he went daily into the church to hold Holy Communion with himself before it. And thus he communed: “That is a most excellent likeness of the Blessed Personage for it isjust like me. Like me, he was the All-Righteous, and, like me, he had but one desire—to suppress the vice of the world; but he lacked method, and unfortunately had notmewith him to give him points. Oh, if it had pleased God to have sent me on earth along with him, what a team we should have made; he with his genius, and I with my method; why, we would have covered the earthwith righteousness, even as the waters cover the sea. Of course he had his faults—as who has not? He was too much inclined to Mercy and Forgiveness and all that sort of thing. He had too much heart, and it ran away with him. Had I been with him—which, alas, I was not—I should have been a corrective. Heart might have been less objectionable in his time than now, but to-day nothing but the Strong Hand and the Heavy Club can drive the degenerate dogs of this day to Virtue and Righteousness; and I believe that were he on earth to-day his good sense would approve a sterner policy of cleansing the earth of sin. Dogs to-day are so fearfully depraved, so very vile, such dreadful despisers of Holy Religion, such malignant scoffers at our reverend salaried barkers, and are so viciously and stubbornly averse to going to heaven, that were they to be let alone, or pushed with mere kindness, they would become utterly evil and corrupt the earth.
“He seems to have had no nose for nastiness nor eye for discerning indecency. But I have a splendid buzzard smeller that detecteth the faintest taint afar off, and an eagle eye that instantaneously discerneth indecency, even where it is not. He lacked the natural taste to dabble with filth and scratch around cesspools. But I am not so. I with my little mop and pail will clean the earth of evil for him. I will suppress Vice and make the earth so lovely that were he to come back he would grasp my paw and say, ‘Well, done Good and Lovely Anthony; thou art unique; thou hast faithfully walloped and larruped the erring dogs of earth back into my Fold of Love; thou hast performed the hitherto impossible job of hammering virtue through their hides, and opening with a club the buds of Holiness in their hearts; henceforth thou art promoted; I will make thee Clubber Plenipotentiary to Hell, which no doubt thou canst reclaim for me.’”
And Lovely Anthony, having sharpened his buzzard smeller and polished his eagle eye, went and easily gathered together a gang of true believers in the Gospel of the Club—for the landwas full of them, brain-embalmed and pig-headedly Bourbonish like himself—and he called them the “Society for the Suppression of Vice,” and said unto them, “Brethren, go ye out into the highways and the byways, and wheresoever ye espy any depraved dog, hale him before the Suppressors, the police dogs. But be very tender with the fleas that are on him, for they are our life. Let your zeal for God effervesce above all considerations. If any depraved and vicious dog hide himself away where it is difficult to get at him, remember that his suppression is thesupreme aimof all your efforts, and act accordingly. If ye cannot lay hold of him openly and boldly, then transform yourselves, and garb yourselves like him and act in all respects as a vicious dog like him, to gain his confidence and draw him from his hole. Stick not at a lie or two, or at any breach of the law to trepan him, or at any damnable and vicious thing which may be necessary to suppress Vice and promote Virtue, for the bringing in of the Kingdom of Heaven is of such tremendous consequence, that if we have to borrow all the ordnance and weaponry of Hell to do it with, we will. Our motto is, ‘The End always justifies the Means,’ and when the vice of all dogs shall have been suppressed and the earth shall be pure again, ye shall all be forgiven.
“If a dog be hungry and howl, suppress his howl, for his noise is disturbing to the repose of the fleas; if he throw covetous glances at any scrap of food that is not his by gracious permission of the fleas, thump him, for covetousness is sin against God and the fleas. If he be measly and have scabs for want of nourishment, smite him severely, and tell him his scabs are an offense to respectable fleas, and such exhibitions are by law prohibited. If by reason of poverty he be ignorant, hit him a whack on the skull, and tell him that Ignorance is the parent of Vice, and cannot be permitted at all. If he be amusing himself with low and disreputable games, larrup him heavily and point him to the Church where God has provided an infinitely better Feast for the Soul than games, and cease not to batterhim until ye have driven him there. And, finally, if he excuse himself that he is plundered and poor and wretched, and must do as he does, smite him on the mouth for those wicked excuses, for they are blasphemy.”
So the Suppressors of Vice went out, abundantly armed with clubs, and equipped with all manner of disguises and dog-catching devices and traps and snares; and they found many dogs that were measly and scabby, and were ignorant, and had dim moral eyesight, and stole, and amused themselves with low games and excused themselves. And the Suppressors exercised all their diligence, and all their arts and devices to suppress and catch those dogs; but the only effect they produced was to cause the dogs to use diligence and art and device to get out of their way and into dark corners.
Illustration: THE SUPPRESSORS OF VICE WENT OUT, ABUNDANTLY ARMED WITH CLUBS.
Then did Lovely Anthony get mad and go out himself to set them an Example, and did set wonderfully complicated traps by which he had great dog-catching success. He would walk about pretending to be a scabby dog, and very ignorant andblind, and would amuse himself with low games, and would spread paper Laws before the dogs, and in their sight jump through them and burst great holes in them and play devil generally, all in order to encourage and tempt the vicious dogs to come out of their hiding places and do likewise, when he would suddenly pounce on them and hold them until he had called the police dogs, who would soundly thump and larrup them.
All this kept Lovely Anthony the Dog Catcher, and his assistant Dog Catchers, very busy and wonderfully well pleased and satisfied with themselves; but as the thumping and larruping never filled the poor dogs’ stomachs or lifted a solitary flea off their bodies, the dogs were only made worse; for in addition to all their other woes, they had the awful affliction of him and his on top. The only difference it made was that it stimulated the cunning of the depraved dogs who grew more expert at hiding away and fooling them.
As to Lovely Anthony the Dog Catcher, his brain having been properly embalmed and eternally fixed, he only waxed more zealous in his efforts; and he prophesied, with all the certainty of one that knew, that sometime during next Eternity all bad and vicious dogs will have been suppressed, and all others walloped into loving God; and all the relations between dogs and fleas will have been harmonized according to the eternal rights of fleas to suck blood.