“Therefore, we, in our plenary power to enforce this decision, do enact that we will do without fleas, and we do hereby resume the control of our own bodies; and therewith we resume all our self-alienated rights and powers; and at the same time we give, grant and convey to you, for your behoof and benefit, all that gospel, that music and those pictures ye have provided for us. We shall not need them now; ye may, for, lo! your doom is sealed.”
“What doom? What dog insolence is this?” cried one of the eminent fleas, in a bold tone. “Dost thou not know, dog, that this is sedition, anarchy and a breach of the peace? Begone! thou and thy low-born, dirty and ill-smelling crew, or by the Law we will turn you over to the police dogs.” And all the other fleas, plucking up heart at these words, cried out too; “Yes, begone!”
But the dogs laughed, and their leader said: “The day of dogs’ obedience to the commands of fleas is gone. Said I not unto you that their eyes had been moistened with the Dilute Solution of Common Sense, and that they can now see through fleas? Ye have not heard; but I and these my fellow dogs were commissioned by the other dogs of Canisville to come here and tell you that a new Will of the Dogs Expresser hath been set up, a very much bigger, better and more effective one than that which ye commanded your slaves and imported beasts to destroy and burn with fire. This Expresser hath the novel but righteous provision for dogs to sit at the bottom of the shute thereof and do the counting. This hath been set up in the Public Place and all the dogs have this day dropped their little wills into the slot thereof, and when the trap in the bottom was pulled and the wills were counted it was found that there was a Great Majority, and the Great Majority said that both the fraudulent Nighuntos and the swindling Faraways should get away from the Tank, that the Blood and Bones Mill should be broken down and the Handle sold to the devil; that the lying Bamboozling Committee and the Great Many Headed Daily Press should be branded as frauds, and that all dogs, big, little and whatsoever, should be absolutely forbidden to contribute in any degree to the maintenance of fleas, and any dog found guilty of having the smallest flea on him should be treated as a public enemy and driven out of the city into the wilderness.
“The police dogs, alarmed at this universal coming of the dogs to their senses, have retired to their kennels, to watch the weathercock, and some very impulsive ones, being quite confident that the dogs are now on top, have very ostentatiously clubbed several eminent fleas; and the Bamboozlers and the Monstrous Fleas, after calling in vain on the prudent and non-committal police dogs to club back to slavery the newly self-enfranchised dogs, have run away. Bones and meat are coming out of their hiding places, and flesh is beginning to grow over the poor dogs’ bones; and we are here to tell you to depart peaceably and find some other community of fools to live on, or live on one another, we care not which.”
But the fleas flew into a great rage, and cried out: “To Hades with your infernal Expresser! Fleas always have been on top, and will be forever!” and, yelling “Down with Sedition,” they with one accord jumped upon the backs of the dogs, and knowing it was now a case of victory or death, they beset them sorely, saying they would teach the miserable, thankless curs who was master. There were many fleas to each dog, and they were very fierce and savage, but not a dog whined or scratched. With tail erect and a noble light in his intelligent eye, the leader turned and departed, followed in like manner by all the others. They passed a place where a lot of timber had been cut and each seized a big chip in his mouth as he trotted along. Soon they came to where flowed a considerable stream of water, on the bank of which they formed in reverse order. Then, with tails trailed in the very dust, and to the murmuring music of the moving waters, they waded in backwards as far as they could until nothing but the chips and the very tip of each nose was above the water. This caused the fleas to drop all thoughts but those of self-preservation, and in a scrambling panic they scampered from dry point to dry point till the chip was the only resting place for their feet. Then, holding each nose upright and each chip well aloft, each dog sank, until nothing but the chip, black with a cursing mob of outwitted and dethroned blood-suckers, was to be seen above the water. A moment more and each dog let go his chip and came to the surface a little way up stream, giving the widest possible berth to any chips floating away from his fellow dogs. Farther up the stream they took to the banks, on which they gathered together and from which they exhorted the drowning fleas to practice the virtue of content, and to look above to that Heaven to which they had so often pointed the dogs. But as the mob of erstwhile powerful tyrants floated away into the dim, forgotten Past, there came for answer only a wail of despair and a dying prayer that God would avenge them some day on a wicked and thankless race of dogs. The dogs, however, with humble and contrite hearts, burst forth into a dog song of deliverance, which ran:
Sound the loud timbrel o’er Misery’s dark sea,
The Suckers are gone, the enslaved ones are free;
Their power and their pride are gone down in the wave,
And the curse is removed, of Master and slave.
And the dogs with songs and joy marched back to the city, and Pup McPoodle and all his gang of wicked and cowardly courtier dogs, hearing of their coming, were seized with terror, and “put” with such rapidity that the momentum of their going carried them far out of sight, and it is supposed they are going still.