And the dogs hasted and each stripped some hair off his tail and hide, and sent it to the Bamboozling Committee, who, in the privacy of their meeting place, had it spun, to the accompaniment of many a wink and many a hilarious laugh over the silly idiots that were so easily—oh, so very easily—buncoed and bamboozled out of Liberty, by Liberty emblems and shams.
And when the great common Rope was ready, they ordained another day of howling thanksgiving, and self laudation, and self glorification, and a solemn moment of attachment of the end thereof to the glorious Banger of the glorious Bell, and a solemn consecration and dedication of the Rope, and another grand hymn, which called all the angels from their most pressing engagements to crowd Heaven’s battlements, in admiration of their magnificently idiotic jubilation.
And the dogs were tickled to death with their Rope, and took turns of gangs at pulling it; and the eternal banging and clanging and jangling of the hammered metal was so delightful that they forgot their hunger even; and they danced around the Bell, and kissed it, and touched it reverently with their noses, and blessed God for Liberty, Liberty, Liberty.
And at the suggestion of the Great Gee Whizz, the Bamboozling Committee made a multitude of little tinkling bells, verisimilitudes of the Great Bell, and touched each one on the Great Bell, and it was so that virtue went out of the Great Bell and made a true Liberty Tinkler of the little one.
And the Committee ordained that each truly patriotic dog hang a Liberty Tinkler on the end of his nose, one in each of his ears, and a row of them on his tail, to the end that all the world and everybody else might hear the noise of Liberty, and that every dog, at every movement of his body and wag of his tail, might be a living, eternal Proclamation of Liberty throughout the land.
And it was so. And the dogs were delighted and hung little Liberty Tinklers upon themselves as ordered; and all Canisville rang with Liberty.
But in a short time the fat fleas, and the eminent fleas, and the Monstrous Fleas, seeing that the Blessed Bell and the Liberty ceremonies had quite served their purpose, and the poor fool dogs had been hypnotized into a very satisfactory state of forgetfulness of their wrongs and miseries, told the Bamboozling Committee that they might now with safety conclude the amusement and close up the show, as it was somewhat expensive.
So the Bamboozling Committee, ordering one grand final hammering, that made the startled angels jump, and a grand final yell for Liberty, which made the air tremble for a week after, and a benediction in chorus by all the salaried barkers, that sounded like the last tapering-off roll of distant thunder, declared the greatest and grandest show of the ages closed.