The wind and thump instruments made a mighty noise; the pretty cloths fluttered gaily; and the poor dogs, thrilled into enthusiasm by the sights and sounds, wagged their tails and cheered as much as their shortness of wind and contracted stomachs allowed. Then, at the sound of trumpet and booming of guns, the copper idol was borne along in a grand procession of fat, eminent, wealthy and Monstrous Fleas, and guarded by a large body of police dogs.
Now, the police dogs, it was noticed, had grown quite corpulent and greasy and consequential since the first Bamboozle Day, and presented quite a contrast to the rest of the dogs, for the fleas had found out that eternal good feeding is the price of police loyalty. True, they were only dogs, and were veritable slaves in the presence of Pup McPoodle, and the wealthy and Monstrous Fleas, who told them to distinctly understand that they were Public Servants, their servants, and not the servants of the dogs at all, as the Public meant fleas only, and they were not to give them any of their bark, on pain of being relegated to the ranks of the dogs that had to scratch for a living; but as they were rotund of belly, and sleek and large, and in all other respects quite different from the common mob of dogs, they regarded themselves as of a different caste, and their sleekness, rotundity, and well-to-do-ism as superior-holiness marks differentiating them from the other dogs; and although they knew that the victuals which fed them were all forcibly taken from the meagre supplies which the other dogs scratched up, they ignored the fact, and held their noses up as high and consequentially as ever they could, and mortally hated any other dog to touch them.
And the Jubilation was great; the great Flag of Liberty was floating its proudest; songs to Liberty were floating to Heaven; her Statue was being led gloriously along, rearing aloft her head to Heaven in magnificent symbolism of the majesty and freedom of the nation of dogs, over whom she was now erected to be Goddess, when a slight accidental crowding amongst the dogs, caused some of the dirty and ill-smelling ones to be crowded so close to the police dogs as actually to touch them.
Now, here was a dreadful occurrence. According to the holy religion of the police dogs, to be even looked at by an ordinary working, grub-hunting dog, is defilement that requires forty days of sequestration and purification, with much fasting and prayer; but to be touched by one—actually touched—involves the total and irreparable loss of Paradise beyond the grave.
Oh, here then, was a wholesale touching of these sacred animals, by an unsanctified and unwashen mob of beastly and measly working dogs of the lowest caste. Horror! Peste! Blood!! Thunder, Lightning and Death!!! For one paralyzing instant they stood petrified with horror and terror; and then the full realization that they had by this horrible defilement suddenly forfeited all hope of Heaven and eternal bliss, rushed over their brains, and, like demons, they fell on those dirty dogs, and began to club the life out of them. The unfortunates, shrieking and howling, fled with all the speed their diminished breath and vitality were capable of, with the police dogs in hot pursuit, laying about them right and left in self defence.
Having thus, in some slight degree, purged away their defilement, and left on the scalps of those dirty dogs, many bloody gashes, as souvenirs of Glorious Liberty, the police dogs, panting from their victory, returned to their places; and the songs, the procession and the worship of Liberty were resumed; the Goddess was stood up on her pedestal; the Bamboozlers ranted and raved about Freedom their rantingest and ravingest, the Great Many Headed Daily Press flitted hither and thither and everywhere, boosting up the hungry dogs to the proper pitch of Patriotic Pride; the Heavens opened, and Freedom as an Eagle, with specially wiped bill and claws, came down and perched on the Goddess’ uplifted arm; the assembled fleas gave a great shout, and, led by Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite, Dephool Flea, Grandadhat, and the rest of the Bamboozlers, gathered around the Flag, and sang:
“Now pray we for our Country,
That Canisville long may be
The Holy and the Happy,