WHEN Chancy Mountebank Dephool Flea had got through with his highly successful oration, he ordered the loud-noise-producing instruments to strike up their loudest, and the pretty cloths to be waved on high with the greatest vigor, in order to keep up the effect that had been produced, and to scare away from the doorways of the dogs’ brains, any sober reflections that might, perchance, be seeking entrance there; and at a given signal, a very large and pretty cloth—which until then, had been kept hidden—having on it a number of white spots and red streaks, was run up to the top of a tall pole and thrown to the breeze. Whereupon, the whole multitude of the fleas, rose up, and prostrated themselves to it, crying:
“Hail! All Hail! All Holy Flag,
Source of our life, we bow to thee,
The Flag, the Flag, the Flag of the Free,
The Flag of the dog, and Flag of the flea.”
And there came a great darkness over all the land; and the atmosphere was suffused with ghostly green and yellow lights, that cast a lurid gloom over the whole assembly; and out of the darkness there came lightnings and a voice of thunder, saying:
“Who doubteth that this is the Flag of the Free,
And boweth not down, thrice cursed be he.”