CHAPTER XXVII.
Chancy Mountebank Dephool Flea, the Prince of Bamboozlers.—His Wonderful Patriotism in Going Abroad Every Summer.—The Dogs Find Themselves Heirs to Greater Liberty Than They Thought For.—Great Success of the Bamboozle.
THEN arose President Chancy Mountebank Dephool Flea, and, after telling his flea friends in a cautionary whisper not to laugh or in any other way “give away” the Bamboozle, advanced with a hop, a skip and a jump to the front and ordered the loud-noise-producing instruments to play up, and the pretty cloths to be waved on high, which, having been done, quite took away the sadness of the dogs and put them in great good humor. Then he stood on his head, and danced on one leg, and turned several somersaults backwards and forwards, and grinned and smiled, and told the dogs some very facetious stories and jokes, which caused them to howl with delirious joy, and declare that that day was the happiest one they had known in many years, and that Chancy Mountebank was, without exception, the funniest fool of a flea they had ever seen, God bless him.
Then he walked upside down across the stage, which made the dogs howl still more, and then advanced to the front and said to the dogs:
“Fellow citizens of this great and prosperous country [great surprise amongst the dogs and much winking amongst the Bamboozlers and other fleas], the highly favored of heaven and the envy of the whole world [great astonishment of the dogs as the fact dawns upon them], land of the free and home of the brave [uncontrollable tittering amongst the Bamboozling Committee as they lower their heads to hide it, and remarks: “aint he a dandy?” “he’s away ahead of you, brother Blatherskite, in the art of dog fooling,” and “the Lord is with us,” from One a Maker of long prayers]. My theme to-day is Liberty, glorious Liberty. My dear fellow citizens, ye have no idea of the incomparable heritage of honor and glory and blessing ye have in the fact that ye have been born and are privileged to live in this wonderful free town and country [tremendous agitation and delight amongst the dogs at this new discovery, which, coming upon their empty stomachs, caused several of the more famished and attenuated to drop dead].
“The very fact that ye were born to freedom, and have been used to it all your lives, renders you unable to properly appreciate your incomparable blessing; for, as the proverbs have it, ‘The blessings we have we value not,’ and ‘We never value the water till the well runs dry.’ Our beloved fellow citizens there, who have just fallen dead, would have been alive now had they daily habituated themselves to thankfulness and the proper estimation of their privileges. But if ye had had the opportunities as I have had of comparing your lot in this highly favored land, with that of the dogs in the rest of the world beyond the pond, your hearts would swell to bursting with infinite gratitude, and your tongues, attuned to thankfulness, would wag with an everlasting Jubilate Deo. [Tears of remorse and penitence well up in the eyes of the dogs at this, and cries of “Lord, make us more thankful,” are heard everywhere, while Grandadhat and Mak Tinley snicker and tickle each other, and ask Carnivorous what he thinks of “Our Chancy,” to which Andronicus replies, “I envy him; his polished and elegant way of lying is as far above my coarse and clumsy way as the smoothness of velvet is above the roughness of sandpaper.” And One a Maker of long prayers, says, “It’s as good as a Means of Grace.”]
“Oh, my dear fellow citizens, ye know that I am the flea that goeth and cometh over the pond every year. For many years I have regarded it as a sacred duty I owe to God and my beloved native country, to go away over the pond every Summer, partly, and as a minor consideration, to recruit my health and obtain a little rest from my terribly exhausting duty of making myself and certain of my fellow fleas wealthy—oh, my beloved dogs, ye have not the slightest idea of what it is to bear the burdens and responsibilities of being rich