RIGHT in the midst of all this universal starvation and death, when every scrap of liberty had been taken from the dogs, and not one dare open his mouth to say his soul or body was his own, the Board of Public Safety suggested to the Bamboozling Committee that now would be the most appropriate time, in the eternal fitness of things, to get up an extra special bamboozlement that should forever fix and clinch in the minds of the dogs the idiotic delusion that they were free.
So the ever-ready Bamboozling Committee ran together and summoned to their sitting all the glib-tongued fat fleas and salaried barkers they could find; and President Chancy Mountebank Dephool Flea arose and said, “Dear Friends: The state of our town and country is very satisfactory just now. Never in its whole history was there such a beautiful blending and harmony of the interests of dogs and fleas as now. Our upper class fleas are doing marvellously well. Thanks to God, dividends are large and frequent, owing to the fact that very many of the middle-class fleas, who alienated altogether too much blood that rightfully belonged to us, have died off. The dogs everywhere have been reduced to know their place, thanks to the efforts of our brethren, Carnivorous and Phrique—to whom our all-wise God gave the strength of his arm in the hour of their sore need—and of our friends, Rosy Pretty Flower, Pennzy Pattyson, Webbfoot, Gold Jay, and our faithful, paunch-bellied police dogs. And the efforts of these our brethren, have been most ably seconded by the preachments and ‘Thus-saith-the-Lords’ of our dearly beloved brother Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite and his fellow fat-salaried barkers, and, above all, by the subtle finesse of our most dearly beloved faithful servant the Great Many Headed Daily Press. Yes, brethren, we are indeed highly favored of God in having three such invaluable aids to the subjugation of the dogs as the police, the Church and the Great Daily Press—one to persuade them physically, and the others to blind them with spiritual dust, blandishments, seductions and lies.”
Here the Reverend Blatherskite and the Great Many Headed Daily Press both closed their eyes, and piously murmured, “To God be all the glory; we are unprofitable servants; we have only done that which it was our duty to do.”
“Yes, brethren,” continued Dephool Flea, “peace and plenty everywhere abound. Everywhere Liberty has been established on foundations that shall nevermore be shaken; and I think, as we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to God for these manifold mercies, we could not show it better than by getting up to his glory a grand old final something or other in honor of Liberty, Freedom, Deliverance and all that—a regular sneezer, you know, a tip-top, ne plus ultra sort of bamboozle that shall beat all creation.”
Up jumped then the Great Many Headed Daily Press and said: “I have it. What these dogs need now, above all things, is more stuff about Liberty. Ye cannot work this theme too much. It is the liberty stealer’s and the tyrant’s best guise, you know——”
“I object,” interrupted a fat flea, excitedly, “to the use of the terms ‘liberty stealer’ and ‘tyrant’ as applied to us.”
“Order, order;” commanded President Dephool Flea. “Of course we all know well enough what we are after, but I suggest to our beloved servant, the Great Many Headed, that, all things considered, it would be better not to call ourselves by our right names even here in our privacy. It will subserve our great cause better to try to believe, ourselves, the bamboozling lies we tell the poor fool dogs. To bamboozle ourselves a little enables us to appear more sincere and serious to them. Therefore the Great Daily Press will please not tell the truth even here.”
“I beg leave to withdraw the offensive truth, then,” said the Great Gee Whizz. “As I was saying, that Statue business was a grand stroke of dog bamboozlement, over which ye fleas ought to laugh to your dying day. Then keep it up. Give these dogs plenty of Liberty talk, Liberty sentiment, and Liberty fakes to celebrate and shout over, and ye can bind them with as many slavish bonds as ye may choose to put upon them. Set them to make the heavens ring with Liberty’s acclaim, and while they are busy with that, ye can filch all their rights away. Do ye hear me?”