The Dogs and the Fleas / By One of the Dogs

by Frederic Scrimshaw

So, not being able to face him in a stand-up fight, they went about seeking his destruction in sly and roundabout ways.

First, they tried their most powerful weapon—a nickname. His name was Robertus Robustus, for he was of great strength. Therefore they went about amongst the poor dogs calling him “Bob,” for it was a sacred religious principle with all salaried barkers to call everyone that was obnoxious to them, by a contemptuous nickname. They had discovered through long experience that heresies amongst dogs were more easily prevented than cured; that it was more efficacious to bring any one into contempt with them, than to let them see him, hear him and judge of him for themselves.

So they called him “Bob,” and sneered over his name whenever they spoke of him; and they tried to get the dogs to have a horror of him by describing him as a beast with horns, hoofs and a long spiked tail; and bore other false witness against him; “for,” said they, “the case is urgent; the very existence of our God is imperilled, and a little false witness to save him He will surely pardon, for all is fair in love and theological war.”

But what caused these salaried barkers to hate him so intensely was the fact that “Bob” was a very good and noble dog, and showed more real kindness of heart and love for the down-trodden and afflicted dogs than they. They reasoned amongst themselves, and boldly told the dogs that all God-despisers, all belittlers of the Almighty Fiction, always had been bad, must necessarily be bad, and therefore “Bob” the God despiser and ridiculer, must necessarily be bad too; that all contempt of the ever blessed Almighty Vengeance, and his ever glorious Hell and the benign eternal tortures, did and must proceed from a corrupt and wicked heart; that none but believers in the Unutterable Horror, were or could be good; therefore, “Bob’s” heart must be rotten and his life wicked. And when a dog objected that the fact that “Bob’s” life being good did not agree with and justify their theory, they said that was all the worse for the fact.

So they proclaimed abroad that “Bob’s” goodness was an irregular, unsanctified and wicked goodness, more wicked than immorality; a cloak “put on” to hide the devilishness of his purpose, which was to steal their God and leave the dogs Godless; which the salaried barkers all and unanimously declared was a great step to the next greatest misfortune—to leave the dogs flealess.

But “Bob” Robertus Robustus cared not. He went on showing himself and laughing at the Almighty Monstrosity, and pleading with the remaining prostrate dogs to lift up their heads, and generally making the many societies look silly.

So the salaried barkers, perceiving that this big dog had grown very dangerous, and that dogs everywhere were growing irreverent, and that instead of receiving with meekness and with the wide open mouth of Simple Faith, the large chunks of ancient and mouldy dogmas of Orthodox Religion, with which the barkers daily fed them, were falling into the wicked habit of shutting the mouth of Simple Faith, and opening the eye of Reason, and smelling, with an inquiring smeller, of the ancient and mouldy dogmas, and poking the nose of irreverence into the “why” and “wherefore” of all the sacred humbugs, resolved to call a conference to devise ways and means to stay the ravages this dangerous dog was working.

All the little and lesser salaried barkers came to the conference with fear and trembling, for their little souls were weighed down with the conviction that if something were not done soon to this irreverent dog, it was all up with them; but when they saw that the Reverend Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite was there, they took heart of hope, for they all knew him to be a most valiant defender of Simple Faith and enemy of Reason.

One of them therefore arose and said: “Brethren and fellow barkers; we to whom has been committed the care of the ever holy dogmas, upon which, up to the present, we have been enabled to preserve the blessed hoary mould and the ancient musty smell, are gathered here to-day by a common sense of a common peril. Ye know that there hath arisen amongst the dogs a fierce and wicked dog of large dimensions and great strength, who is teaching them to laugh at sacred things and bring us into contempt. Now, it follows that if we are brought into contempt, not only will our living be gone (which is the thing of greatest moment), but the divinely ordained relations between the dogs and our patrons and masters, the fleas, will be disrupted, and go to the dogs; and we, the divinely appointed guardians of those sacred relations, shall draw upon our heads the wrath of the Monstrous Fleas, who will regard us as unfaithful stewards of their interests.

“In this perilous hour, then, we need some one who will point a way out of our trouble. I am happy to say I see with us our valiant friend, the Reverend Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite.” (Immense and prolonged barking by the whole assembly.) “I need not say he is our champion. Ye all intuitively perceive that there is none so fit as he to grapple with this newly arisen terror of a dog.