“Of course there will be no dogs admitted, for the admission fee to see us hop will be so high that none but the rich will be able to afford it; but as the proceeds are to go to the dogs, this will be a blessing rather than otherwise. And of course, too, to admit a lot of unkempt, musty and ill-smelling dogs would mar the harmonies of the picture; would not consort with the brilliance and beauty of our paraphernalia, and would offend the delicate sensibilities of our sister saints. They would assuredly keep away the very rich and æsthetic elite, whom we wish to come to see us hop. In fact, deeply and intensely as I love the poor, in their proper sphere, I should not care to come myself.
“This, my friends, is my suggestion; and I think that with charity balls and picture galleries, and free music, and free gospel, the problem of canine discontent and infidelity and poverty will be pretty nearly solved. And I think too, that if the dogs are not thankful for all this great provision that we have made for their temporal and eternal welfare, they are a most ungrateful set.”
And Lady Vanderbillion Flea sat down amid renewed applause.
CHAPTER XLI.
A Messenger of Evil Tidings.—The Conference Alarmed.—The Old Disease Revived.—The Conference in Confusion.—Mutual Recriminations.—Invaded by Unwelcome Dogs.—The Big Dog’s Fearful Indictment of the Fleas.—Tells How the Dogs Came to Their Senses.
SCARCELY had the air, agitated with the acclamations following Lady Vanderbillion Flea’s happy suggestion, recovered its tranquillity, when a large flea was seen to enter by a side door, near the platform, and, in evident agitation, present a little note to the presiding angel of the assembly, His Grace, the Serene and Excessively Distinguished Archiepiscopus of the Diocese of Puliciania, who, as he perused, was noticed to turn very pale and shake, while all the fleas looked on with nervous apprehension. He had scarcely finished, when he beckoned to some of the most eminent, wealthy and Monstrous Fleas to come with him into a corner, as he had a matter of vital import to speak to them about.
Whereupon, the assembly of the fleas, always apprehensive of trouble, could not contain themselves, but cried out to know what was the matter. So, His Grace, the Serene, etc., etc., in faltering accents made answer and said: “Alas, Brethren and Sisters, this messenger hath brought us evil tidings of great grief. He reports that a most virulent, infectious and contagious epidemic of the thinking disease has broken out amongst the dogs, infinitely worse than anything heretofore known; yea, so virulent is it that it seems to defy all the remedies known to the Bamboozlers’ Pharmacopœia, which, with God’s help, were always until now so efficient. So violent and rapid is this plague, this messenger says, that the victim seems to be taken utterly without warning. One minute, he is, to all appearances, in the very best and most satisfactory state of idiocy and drivelling devotion to Country and Flag, and the next, he is in the throes of the most dreadful and dangerous sanity. He says the Board of Public Safety, the Bamboozling Committee and the Great Many Headed Daily Press, have been hastily summoned, but are gaping at each other in dumb and helpless bemuddlement; and all the Emdees are in consultation, but are quite puzzled, for they never knew or heard of such a sudden and widespread outbreak. He says they say they think it is the recurrence of an old, and supposed-to-have-been-extinct disease—but which evidently travels in an elliptical orbit of such immense elongation, that its point of intersection with the orbit of canine revolution gives the disease about an every-ten-centuries periodicity of conjunction.