“And there cometh forth from the infinite profundities of the tenebrious immensities, a Voice of ten thousand-million-thunder power, in direful proclamation, saying:
“‘All dogs to the Judgment. Crowns of glory, eternal joy and everlasting fullness unto all dogs that on earth have done righteously, have walked humbly in the fear of God, and reverenced His anointed ones, the fleas; and have paid unto them their just and Heaven-ordained dues; that have not blasphemed them, or called in question the righteousness of their doings; that have counted poverty their highest honor. Blessed are they that have hungered, that the fleas might be filled; that have gone naked, that the fleas might be clothed; that have died, that the fleas might live; that have grovelled in darkness and filth, that the fleas might dwell in honor and wealth. Great is now their reward, and they shall now themselves be lifted up on high and glorified for duty done.’
“‘But woe and desolation to the disobedient, discontented and unrighteous dogs that have growled against the divine ordination of their lives and lots; that have cursed their hunger and nakedness; that have spoken blasphemy against the fleas, and the Constitution and Laws of Canisville, and poked the blasphemous nose of Inquiry into the inscrutable and not-to-be-inquired-into wisdom of the divine ordination of dogs and fleas. No crowns for them, no joy, no fullness. It is decreed that they go down to Hell with Satan and Wilyumtwede.’
“At the pronouncement of this sentence the million-instrumented orchestra of the spheres crashes out a mighty ‘Amen.’ The morning stars clap their hands with joy; the evening and the midnight stars take up the cue, and flash it on from star to star; it rings from system to system, from universe to universe, until from farthest nebula to farthest nebula, the whole creation pulses and thrills and vibrates with the tintinnabulous acclaim. The heavens open, and amid a deluge of unapproachable light, the worthy dogs with pæans of victorious joy, are caught up thereto; while Hell beneath opens wide its yawning jaws, and the unrighteous and disobedient dogs, amid thunder and lightning, go howling down, down, down, in an everlasting and ever accelerating descent, to the place of unutterable torment and fiery woe.”
At this mighty outburst of luridly pyrotechnical eloquence, the great crowd of dogs turned deadly pale and faint; and they turned guiltily, each to his neighbor, and said, “He means us;” “Ain’t it awful?” “God forgive us, we must never repine or speak evil of fleas any more.”
And many of the dogs there, being wasted and weak for want of food, could not stand the terror of the Blatherskite’s portrayal, and several of the most famished and anæmic among them, trembled and tottered and fell dead, and had to be carried off to the morgue; which the bystanders declared must have been intended of Heaven, as a sample and small installment of the threatened Judgment.
And the assembled fleas nudged one another, and remarked unctuously that the Bamboozle was working very successfully so far, and was certainly being very much blessed of Heaven, to the touching up of the consciences of the dogs. The Holy One a Maker of long prayers and short wages, rolled up his seventh-day eye to heaven, and said: “We fleas have much to be thankful for in the gift to us of the Blatherskite.” Harry Grandadhat exclaimed: “Society is saved!” And President Chancy Mountebank Dephool Flea winked an eye at de Little Wit Blatherskite as he resumed his seat, and whispered to him: “Brother—dog only though thou art—I love thee; thou hast excellently done; this day—thanks to the might of thy facile and well lubricated jaw—is salvation come to the fleas of Canisville; thou hast in thine effort this day exceeded and more than justified the Committee’s highest expectation of thee; the Bamboozle prospereth.”
And the Blatherskite, with a reciprocating wink, said, “Yes, I flatter myself there are no flies on me.”