Читать книгу The Dogs and the Fleas - Frederic Scrimshaw - Страница 14

Table of Contents

Hell and Chaos in Canisville.—Tramp Dogs.—Rise of the Apologist Philosophers.—Whatsoever is is Right.—Their Proverb Foundry.

CHAOS reigned in Canisville. Hell seemed to have grown so hungry for victims that it had not patience to wait for the coming down of the dogs to it, in the natural course of time, but had gone up to devour them on earth. Dogs everywhere were the property of the fleas, either by direct settlement on their bodies or by deputy. All that were not struggling by serving the Monstrous Fleas at the Handle were wandering around carrying little fleas and hunting hard for bones and scraps. The only exceptions were a few obstinate headed and obdurate hearted dogs, who had said they would have freedom at any cost. They said they would not turn that infernal Handle, neither would they carry and maintain any fleas. So they defiantly went about picking up scraps, and when the little fleas came hopping onto them, and demanding as their right to suck out of them the nutriment the scraps gave them, those dogs did snarl and reach around for them with their teeth and violently shake them off.

Then did those little fleas complain unto McPoodle that there were certain wicked dogs that objected to be bled; and McPoodle said he would not stand it in his dominions; and the Monstrous Fleas when they heard about it, said it was Robbery of the Little Brethren, and a contagious Bad Example that might spread throughout Society; and they spake unto their salaried barker in the Church, Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite, that he speak over the big book that lay on the costly cushion, against the sin of dogs stealing their own bodies away from the bites of the fleas. And the barker did speak, and the good and well behaved dogs who carried their fleas and bore their hunger piously did regard with severity and high disapproval all those dogs that shook their fleas, insomuch that the flea shakers found themselves in ill odor and did withdraw themselves from dog society, and sought lonely places where meat was scarce and fleas scarcer.

Yet did not those dogs repine. They tramped and vagabondized and reposed in the sun and the dirt; they grew very hairy and very dirty and very hungry. But they said they were never hungrier than they would have been had they remained in Good Society, and spent their days hustling for fleas, which, they said, was on the whole an advantage, as it was much less awful to be idle and hungry than to work one’s life out for others and be hungry all the same; and as for Public Opinion, why, to be able to snooze in the sunshine, was worth any amount of Public Opinion that left one’s stomach insolvent. They also became covered with vermin, which the flea-covered and respectable dogs of Canisville shuddered at; but the vagabond dogs said that carrying vermin was not half as burdensome or half as injurious to the health as carrying fleas; and as for getting their living without work, why, the Monstrous Fleas did no work at all and were monstrously respectable, and they were going to be respectable too; all which reasoning the pious dogs said was Sophistry, and tended to lower them still further in the estimation of the big fleas and other Good Society.

Verily a chaotic state of things prevailed; and to the few sensible dogs that ever and anon bobbed up from out-of-the way places to bark a bark of protest, and then sink into oblivion or be stoned out of town, all things seemed upside down.

But as there never was a time in all the world’s history when to the Apologist Philosophers of the times things that were were not right, even so at this chaotic time in Canisville there arose the usual Apologist Philosophers who took things as they were, and out of them built a wonderful economic philosophy most beautiful to behold, the only trouble with which was that whenever anyone of the few sensible dogs would come out of his hole of hiding and prod it with a little weapon called Common Sense, the whole elaborate system would collapse and drop into dust. Wherefore the Apologist Philosophers were aggrieved, and appealed to the Authorities to make it a Felony for any unpopular dog to go about prodding philosophical systems with Common Sense, or to have about him any Common Sense, which was, they said, a carrying of concealed weapons.

These Apologist Philosophers were singular creatures and insufferably self-conceited, because they had “got on in the world” as they called it; that is, they were all lucky dogs who had managed to get fat by lying in wait for and catching what they called “Chances,”—that is, stray scraps of meat—and by always speaking a good word for the big fleas, who rewarded them by giving them a few of their fellow dogs to eat. Many of them made their faces smooth, and tied around their necks white bands called “Chokers,” which gave them a singular appearance of which they were very vain. But their most singular distinguishment was that they wore opaquely green spectacles and walked on their fore feet and the tips of their noses, with their hind legs and tails in the air. This uncommon way of walking enabled them, they said, to get a view of earthly things totally different from that obtainable by the ordinary degraded way of going on all fours, and enabled them more distinctly to see things as they appeared, which was, they said, the philosophical method, as contra-distinguished from the low, vulgar, altogether despicable and ought-to-be-prohibited Common Sense method of seeing things as they were.

The habit of these dogs was to promenade abroad by moonless and starless night and “observe” through their opaquely green spectacles, and then gather together by day in what they called a “School,” where, secluded from noise and light and air, they boiled down their observations and ran them into moulds, the results of which operation they called “Maxims,” “Apothegms” and “Proverbs” which when cold they handed out to other dogs to hawk about in the public places as free gifts to all dogs to hang up in the chambers of their memories.

This Proverb Foundry, the big fleas said, was an excellent Institution and was worthy of support as it did a vast amount of Good; for it provided good things for dogs everywhere to put in their mouths, which, as food was scarce, was a Blessed Charity, and, moreover, by giving the dogs plenty to do mumbling these Proverbs and Maxims over and over in their mouths, kept them out of the mischief of thinking, and preserved their minds in a wholesome state of imbecility which was conducive to Social Order and the Stability of Institutions.

These wise-appearing philosophers, seeing that bones were scarce and dogs many, urged upon every dog the importance of getting ahead of every other dog, by remembering that “The early bird gets the first worm.” Seeing that in a crowd of struggling dogs, all the strong and lusty ones came to the front and uppermost, they made that all right by inventing the heartless motto for the guidance of the unscrupulous, “There’s plenty of room at the top.” Observing that just through the gap in the fence there is food for five dogs which one hundred and fifty are biting and tearing to get at, they encouraged the dogs to bear in mind that “Success in life comes only by push and enterprise.” Having noted that he who gobbled up his meat the fastest got most into his inside in the same time, they urged them to racing speed by the proverbs, “Time is money,” “Procrastination is the thief of time,” and “Hurry Up is the fastest horse.” Noticing that when anyone throws a scrap of meat to a crowd of hungry dogs, the one which is first and smartest gets it, they put the rule for such cases thus: “Opportunity once gone never returns.” Having themselves got on by carefully watching when other dogs threw away stale and mouldy meat that was not exceedingly well worth eating, and hoarding the same in sly holes and corners, they glorified such mean conduct by saying, “Frugality is the Mother of Wealth;” and when they denied their hungry stomachs a scrap in order to have a larger hoard, they erected their mean stinginess into a Philosophy of Life by remarking that “A Penny saved is a Penny Earned.”

And so on and so on. In a thousand ways they taught that getting on in the world is by “carving one’s way,” “compelling success,” biting, scratching, crowding, knocking down and trampling on your fellows; and they taught that only the winner in the race is to be congratulated on his efforts; that he who grabs and gets the bone is the one rightly entitled to it; and that all who run and fall, and all who grab and miss, should be voted immoral and sent to perdition.

And never a one of them ever made a proverb or a maxim that had in it the remotest suggestion that there might be any other way for dogs to live and be happy, save that by which they were now so miserably perishing; for, as aforesaid, they were great philosophers.