The Dogs and the Fleas / By One of the Dogs

by Frederic Scrimshaw

And it was so that the words of the Only Original Truth Speakers sank deeply into the hearts of the Handle Turners; and great fear and discumfuzzlement fell upon many of them. And they were divided in opinion. Some said the Dog Worshippers spake wisely, for all knew that the dogs of Kyhidom had always been their enemies; and no doubt it was true that the dogs of Kyhidom had seduced the Faraway Low Pressure Dog Admirers to sell the Mill and take away the Handle. And others said that the Dog Worshippers must be a greedy, unconscionable lot of Suckers who made large pretenses of friendship and love to the Handle Turners simply to retain their fat positions at the Spout, since no one, under the most rigid scrutiny and cross-examination, had ever been able to adduce the twenty thousand millionth part of an instance where a High Pressure Sucker had ever sought anything other than the enlargement of his own private and particular paunch.

So when the great Paper Dropping Day came around there was much barking and snarling and wrangling as to who ought to be placed near the Spout; and the two sets of fleas were trembling between great hopes and great fears; and each set shouted its hardest to the dogs to be wise and to be faithful to their own best interests by dropping their papers for it in the slot of the little Expresser.

And there was much noise and confusion during the filling of the little box. And when the little trap door was pulled and the papers went in a thundering avalanche down the shute, each set of fleas tried to run away with the Great Majority regardless of what was written upon them. But after much fighting it was finally declared that the Great Majority of Wills was for the Faraways to sit up near the Spout, and for the Nighuntos to get far away. Then did both the Faraways and Nighuntos rise up and beautifully make obeisance to the Expressed Will of the Dogs, the heretofore Faraways bowing even to the ground; but the heretofore Nighuntos merely inclined their noses, and said “Damn” in soliloquial whispers.

So the Faraways got up close to the Spout and became the Nighuntos, and the Nighuntos were shoved to the lower end of the Tank and became the Faraways, and began in their turn to hustle and shove and charge the Nighuntos with selfishly using the Spout to make themselves fat.

And the dogs of the Majority were very happy, and took a day off (by gracious permission of the new Nighuntos) to bark and stand on their heads and burn fuel and make great smoke and stench, and do other idiotic things to show the great joy they felt at having put another set of suckers near the Spout.

Then they returned to diligently turn the Handle and hope for great good times. Which came not.

And after many days of the same old grind, being taunted by the dogs of the Minority who every morning said, “We told you so,” and every evening said, “Thus did we prophesy unto you,” the dogs of the Majority sent down to ask the new Nighuntos about what time the dogs at the Handle might expect the peep of the Better Day and the fruition of the Promises?

To which the Nighunto Dog Admirers solemnly made answer that they had made the fearful discovery that the tank was on two bases, one of gold and the other of silver, and that the Silver Basis had shrunk and got so dreadfully awry that the Tank had fallen all askew on that side, and was in danger of capsizing altogether, so that they were all in a dreadful stew, and had to give all their attention to the Great Question of getting it into position again on a Single Gold Basis that would command their Confidence, and never, never, never give way again, and that all mere dog starvation and trouble were trivialities compared to the great overshadowing need of saving the Tank from ruin. Besides, the Faraway Dog Worshippers were now in control of the lower end of the Tank, and had, previous to its slipping with its Silver Basis, wickedly bored a hole in it and drawn off the Surplus, and were in other ways most unpatriotically hampering the Dog Admirers in their efforts to economize and reduce the Stream; that there was a Great Deficiency to be made up, and that it would be some years at least before they would be in a Position to effect much Reform, and that for the present it was absolutely necessary for the dogs to make up the Great Deficiency in the Tank, and must grind an hour a day longer for at least a year.

Which caused the dogs to go sadly back to their hungry turning of the Handle, and to wonder why the great Will of the Dogs Expresser required so much eternity its wonders to perform.