And he told them what a great and brilliant light this Saint Andronicus had shed over all the town and country of the Canisvillians, and how, by his illustrious example he had shown the only true and honorable way of getting up from nothing to the highest pinnacle of wealthy comfort—which was by “organizing” great bodies of dogs to build him a high pyramid of dying dogs for him to climb up and feed on as he climbed; how by his enormous diligence and ability in “acquiring” he had come to own many mansions and palaces here below; how by strict methodical habits and careful husbanding of time he had been able to snatch a few moments from his arduous duties of trotting around from mansion and palace to palace and mansion enjoying himself, to write beautiful sermons on the true way of distributing the results of dog phlebotomy—it was, he said, to take the blood of the dogs he had exhausted, and carry it many miles away (from three to ten thousand) and there pour it out into a long trough, and whistle to any and all dogs living thereabouts to come, without money and without price and lap it up. “Thus,” said he, “do I fulfill the great Natural Law of the Circulation of the Blood; the dogs who yield it see it no more, and strange dogs who yield it not get it all—save the tribute I take from it for the maintenance of me and mine. Thus do I make brethren of all the world of dogs and all is well, and Saint Andronicus is glorified.”
He had also so far descended from his high glory as to write by proxy a beautiful book of trashy platitudes, entitled “Triumphant Dogocracy” which set forth and proved that the dogs of Canisville were the fattest, freest, happiest and most prosperous dogs in all the world, and that their fatness, freedom and prosperity were all owing to the fact that, since the driving out of the dogs of Kyhidom and the abolition of the sending of blood over the pond to nourish the Absentee Fleas, and the destruction of the system of not allowing dogs to consent to being bled by the fleas, they had established the self governing system of permitting them to consent, and allowing the fleas to go over the pond and take the dogs’ blood with them. All which demonstrated the glorious advantage of having abolished the system of Tweedledum and of having established that of Tweedledee.
Nevertheless the said most estimable Andronicus had been unfortunately compelled to allow sundry of his own dogs to receive fatherly chastisement because they had become restive under several extra bites he had proposed to give them for their good.
And the barking dog in peroration said, “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth; even so hath Saint Andronicus done unto those he loved, that they may not again err from the path of duty.”
And all the little dogs, who sat on the “free seats” all around the “Church,” wagged their little tails and barked pleasantly; and all the assembled fleas stroked their fat paunches contentedly, and said that they had heard that morning a most powerful gospel sermon, and that their salaried barker was a true prophet of God.
CHAPTER V.
The “Battle of Life.”—Pup McPoodle’s Wicked Reign.—Invention of the Protectivtarif.—How it was Worked.—Construction of the Blood and Bones Grindery.—Singular Blood.
