UNPROFITABLE VICTORY.—PLAGUE OF FLEAS.—DESPERATE
CONDITION OF THE DOGS.
[Illustration]
NOW the poor fool dogs of Canisville had been told by their own fleas
that victory over the wicked dogs of Kyhidom meant Freedom, Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity, Prosperity, Universal Wealth, Heaven, to
themselves; and they believed them. But it did not. On the contrary,
Freedom, Liberty, Equality, etc., etc., gradually vanished like a
setting sun, and a great plague of itch, came upon all the dogs; and
from the rising of the sun until the going down thereof, and until his
rising again, the dogs scratched and scratched and abraded themselves
against walls and posts, and howled and barked and barked and barked
about the “Good old times” when all dogs were healthy and lustrous of
coat.
And the dogs grew thin and lank and mangy looking. Their eyes grew
lustreless, and their ribs could be counted by the naked eye at quite
a distance. Their ears hung down; their spirit departed; and only when
some specially venomous flea gave a dog a specially venomous nip did
he awake from his listlessness; with a quick explosive yelp he would
suddenly flop on the ground and cause his hind leg to vibrate with the
rapidity of a suddenly released spring.
But as for the fleas they prospered in an inverse ratio to the dogs. All
the qualities of the dogs seemed to be transferred to them. As the dogs
grew thin the fleas grew fat and plump. As the dogs grew listless the
fleas grew lively. As a total aggregate of dog and flea there seemed to
be no loss of volume; for what one lost the other seemed to gain. The
average of blood, vitality and energy seemed about as before; and to
the outside spectator, it made no difference; but it was another matter
entirely with the constituent parts; for the only part of this society
that was abundantly satisfied was the fleas, and the only part that was
not at all satisfied was the dogs.
[Illustration]
And it came to pass that the dogs became possessed, seemingly, of a
desire to work harder. Everyone now frenziedly tore around, scratching
in gutters for any kind of dirty eatables, nosing in garbage barrels and
keeping up an incessant trot in search of something to eat. Moreover
they seemed to become possessed of the devil. Their tempers went sour,
and they seemed to be perpetually on the hunt for a fight. Let but one
dog be found munching a bone, and instantly half-a-dozen others, with
growls, would rush upon him and compel him to let go, only to snarl, and
rage and battle for it amongst themselves; from which conflict several
would emerge bleeding, torn and ragged. And the more they fought and
squabbled for bones and scraps, the scarcer the bones and scraps seemed
to grow. The dogs were always hungry, and in spite of their utmost
efforts many fell by the wayside and died of starvation; and the wail of
the hungry ones nightly went up to heaven.
[Illustration]
Why was all this? Nobody seemed to know, save a few old fogy dogs who
remembered the good time of the reign of the departed chieftain, Bull
McMastiff. _They_ said that there were as many bones and scraps in the
community as ever there were; yea, that there were more than ten times
as many as in McMastiff’s reign. _They_ said that the real reason was
that every dog had become so thickly settled with fleas, that, no matter
how hard and how many hours a day he hunted for food, he could never
get enough to nourish himself, because the fleas he carried _ate him
up_ and so continually sucked his blood, that they kept him always thin
and on the very edge of starvation. Said they: “Behold the fleas; they
toil not, neither do they spin, neither do they hunt after bones, nor do
any manner of work on the Sabbath, nor on any other day, for a living;
and yet, verily, not a dog in all his plumpness in the good old times,
was half so plump as one of these. Behold how easy be the times these
suckers have; the body which maintains them carries them around, and is,
in all respects, their most humble and obedient servant.”
[Illustration]
But the bare-ribbed, hungry and flea-ridden mob of dogs derided these
wise old stagers and mockingly cried out to them, “Go up, ye bald heads;
what do ye know about these things?” “Shut up your jaw!” “Pull down your
vest!” “Shoot them teeth!” and other such ribald remarks. Therefore
the wise old dogs did shut up, and did no more try the impossible job
of teaching fools. And in a few more years they drew up their feet and
gave up the ghost; and the community had rest from their unwelcome
prophesying.
[Illustration]
But _the miseries of the dogs did not abate with the death of those who
told them what the matter was_. Every day the police dogs reported that
they had discovered another one either dying or dead of starvation; and
then the dogs ran together and called a confab, which they named an
“inquest.” And the “inquest” was a solemn ceremony where a dozen or more
dogs, each blind in one eye, headed by another dog called a “Coroner”
—also blind in one eye and weak in the other—looked the dead dog all
over and then said: “Natural causes;” “Visitation of God;” “Anæmia;”
“Atrophy;” “Cardialgia;” “_Vacuity of the_ _Alimentary Canal_,” and
then ordered somebody to bury him in the sacred place of dogs called the
“Field of the Potter.”
But it was several times noticed that no “inquest” was ever held over
a flea. When a flea died he was always in bed, surrounded by a coming
and going host of his sorrowing pulician friends, and attended by a
peculiar set of creatures called “Emdees.” who did all they could to
retard his death. And when he was dead they all signed an elaborately
ornamented paper called a “certificate,” which set forth that the
“late lamented” sucker had “deceased” and “passed away” and “gone to
Heaven” by reason of the highly respectable complaint known as “Abnormal
Enlargement of the Paunch,” and recommended him to the gracious notice
and distinguished consideration of the angels.