CHAPTER XXXV.
Liberty, Lots of It.—But Victuals are Unfortunately in Inverse Proportion.—Mutual Congratulation of the Fleas on the Very Satisfactory State of Things.— A Point Overlooked; Which Proves that the Best Laid Schemes of Mice and Fleas Gang Aft Aglee.—Illegal Hunger.—Almighty Tommy.
Illustration: DECORATIVE LETTER ‘T’.
THE Liberty Goddess consecrating was a perfect success; the dogs were delighted and happy, and as they staggered back, hungry and weary, to the holes and hiding places they called their homes, a sweet peace and content was upon them. Why they were content and peaceful they did not know and could not tell; but in a dazed and hypnotic way, they felt that though the fleas upon them and round about them were eating them up; though their poor bones were protruding through their skins, and disease, and anæmia were becoming universal, they had an intangible property they called a Free Country, a Glorious Flag, and a wonderful Statue that in some mysterious way made them a Great Nation.
And the Bamboozling Committee were delighted even unto delirium, and they reported unto the Board of Public Safety that God had prospered their efforts beyond their most sanguine expectations, and that the dogs were, with perhaps a few exceptions—whom they hoped the police would diligently make note of, with a view to their early, total and complete extirpation and extinction—now reduced to a very satisfactory state of drivelling idiocy, and law abiding patriotism, and that they could be led by the nose whithersoever the Board might desire; that the latest acquisition to their Committee—the Great Many Headed Daily Press, could not be too highly spoken of for its wonderful efficiency; in fact it had—though the latest—proved itself the greatest acquisition to their bamboozling forces; that in fact it was more than a whole Bamboozling Committee in itself, and could devise more and slicker dog bamboozlements in five minutes than the whole Committee could in five months; that its terms were very simple, being only that they it served should be the highest bidders, which of course meant that the dogs could never be “in it” at bidding with the fleas, and therefore it would be at the bidding of the fleas forever and forever, Amen. And finally they wished to accord the Crown and the Palm to the Great Many Headed Daily Press.
And the Board reported to the Government and the Monstrous Fleas that the Country was saved, bless the Lord; that the Period of Trouble was all safely past, thank God; that all dangerous combinations of White Labellers were broken up beyond all hope of future revival, Heaven be praised; that all contagious thinking and speaking dogs were known to the police and were marked for slaughter, with God’s help; that the right relationship between the dogs and the fleas had been properly defined and established, and that under Providence all danger of the natural, God-ordained right of fleas to live on dogs being again brought into question was passed away, praise God; and that peace, patriotism, good order, submissionto authority, and ever-growing blood dividends, were now established on a firm and ever enduring basis, Hallelujah.
All which was quite true. But there was one thing that neither the Great Many Headed Daily Press nor the Bamboozling Committee, nor the Government, nor the Monstrous Fleas could devise; that no power on earth ever was able to devise; that no power on earth ever will be able to devise; and that is, how dogs can be starved forever and yet be made to yield the same amount of blood to the sucking of fleas. No power ever did it, but every power believes it can be done, and thatitcan do it. Therefore the Canisville fleas imagined they had made all arrangements to do it, and so settled themselves down in comfort and peace to the everlasting bliss of drinking themselves eternally fuller and tighter; every little flea seeing good prospects of becoming a big flea, and every big flea looking hopefully forward to becoming a Monstrous Flea, and every Monstrous Flea looking savagely gleefully forward to the glorious time when his paunch should measure miles and miles around, and he should be simply an immense reservoir of blood,blood,BLOOD, BLOOD.
But alas! The greed of the fleas in cornering the food of the dogs to reduce them to servility, along with their increased avidity for their blood, overreached itself, and dogs everywhere began to die; and as the dearth increased, the surviving ones went insane and more savagely than ever fought and killed one another for the odd scraps that were now to be found. And the dying off of so many dogs threw vast multitudes of fleasout of dog, andtheybegan to starve too; and when they began to starve they went, for want of dog, to fighting and devouring one another; all which mightily pleased the Monstrous Fleas, which did own the Blood and Bones Grindery and the Government, and pretty nearly everything else by this time; and they chuckled and said, “Now shall the pesky little and middle sized fleas be starved out, and there will be all the more blood for us, and we shall possess the earth and dwell alone init, and grow and grow and grow until none shall be so big as we, for we are surely the children of Heaven, and the favorites of the Most High; yes we are.”
And the famine increased in Canisville, and the dogs were sore distressed and cried aloud to Heaven for help. But the heavens were as brass and heard not; so, turning from that quarter, they turned to the Government and to the fleas, and got together great multitudes of the most hungry of their number and made unto themselves a large Flag of the Free, and several Flags of the Hungry, and marched in procession, bearing these on high, and also large legends such as “We want bread,” “We want work,” “We are hungry,” “Merciful fleas, do something for us,” “We are bloodless; oh fleas, give us blood.”
And the noise of their marching was disturbing to the peace and repose of the Monstrous Fleas, and they ordered Pup McPoodle to order the police dogs to order it stopped; and the chief of the police dogs, being very fat and sleek and plethoric of blood himself, and being utterly unable to understand what hunger meant, spake austerely unto them, and said: “By the almighty power in me vested, as Public Functionary of the Great Public (the fleas), this thing has got to stop right here. What the Satan you’ve got to march for, I ken not. What the Satan you mean by being hungry, I cannot for the life of me comprehend. I don’t know what the word ‘Hunger’ means, but I believe it’s an illegal word and contrary to the Constitution. [Voice in the crowd, “It is contrary toourconstitutions, too.”] I have been told that it means Anarchy, which I don’t quite comprehend, but which, I know, is illegal; consequently disperse, get out, vamose, and go away, and don’t ever let me hear of this illegal business of getting hungry again, or by my holy williamstick I will make things red hot for you. I, the Almighty Tommy, have spoken.”
Illustration: ‘WE WANT BREAD,’ ‘WE WANT WORK,’ ‘WE ARE HUNGRY.’
So the poor skinny dogs, withered by the red hot glance of the Almighty Tommy’s eye, and scorched by his burning words, and moreover having been thus so plainly caught,flagrante delicto, in the illegal state of being hungry and expressing the fact in words, did haul down their legends and their Flags of the Hungry, and lifting up the Flag of the Free as high as possible, in token of enhanced reverence for the Law and the Constitution, marched back and dispersed to their several holes and dens, where hundreds of them meekly lay down and legally and constitutionally died of starvation, but where they were not discovered until their poor festering corpses had raised an illegal and unconstitutional stench.