Chapter XLI (A Messenger Of Evil Tidings) (A Messenger Of Evil Tidings). A Messenger Of Evil Tidings. - The Conference Alarmed. - The Old Disease Revived. - The Conference In Confusion. - Mutual Recriminations. - Invaded By Unwelcome Dogs. - The Big Dog's Fearful Indictment Of The Fleas. - Tells How The Dogs Came To Their Senses.

SCARCELY had the air, agitated with the acclamations following Lady Vanderbillion Flea's happy suggestion, recovered its tranquillity, when a large Ilea was seen to enter by a side door, near the platform, and, in evident agitation, present a little note to the presiding angel of the assembly, His Grace, the Serene and Excessively Distinguished Archiepiscopus of the Diocese of Puliciania, who, as he perused, was noticed to turn very pale and shake, while all the fleas looked on with nervous apprehension. He had scarcely finished, when he beckoned to some of the most eminent, wealthy and Monstrous Fleas to come with him into a corner, as he had a matter of vital import to speak to them about Whereupon, the assembly of the fleas, always apprehensive of trouble, could not contain themselves, but cried out to know what was the matter. So, His Grace, the Serene, etc., etc., in faltering accents made answer and said: "Alas, Brethren and Sisters, this messenger hath brought us evil tidings of great grief. He reports that a most virulent, infectious and contagious epidemic of the thinking disease has broken out amongst the dogs, infinitely worse than anything heretofore known ; yea, so virulent is it that it seems to defy all the remedies known to the Bamboozlers' Pharmacopoeia, which, with God's help, were always until now so efficient So violent and rapid is this plague, this messenger says, that the victim seems to be taken utterly without warning. One minute, he is, to all appearances, in the very best and most satisfactory state of idiocy and drivelling devotion to Country and Flag, and the next, he is in the throes of the most dreadful and dangerous sanity. He says the Board of Public Safety, the Bamboozling Committee and the Great Many Headed Daily Press, have been hastily summoned, but are gaping at each other in dumb and helpless bemuddlement; and all the Emdees are in consultation, but are quite puzzled, for they never knew or heard of such a sudden and widespread outbreak. He says they say they think it is the recurrence of an old, and supposed-to-have-been-extinct disease - but which evidently travels in an elliptical orbit of such immense elongation, that its point of intersection with the orbit of canine revolution gives the disease about an every-ten-centuries periodicity of conjunction.

"He says they say it is a disease that attacks the optic nerve of each eye simultaneously, and is caused by the abnormal intensification and aesthetization of the anonymous gastric thingumybob, at its point of junction with the visual organs, and is primarily due to intense and prolonged hunger and abuse. This disease is known in common language as "Eye-opening," and is regarded as a very fatal malady; not, singular to say, to the dog attacked, but only to the fleas on him, as he immediately begins to sever those sacred relations which God has established between him and his fleas, so that they begin to wither and perish for lack of nourishment."

And at these ominous words, great fear and trembling came upon all the assembly, and they began to bewail, and to charge that an ungrateful Providence had gone back on them, in the very hour when they had gathered to do something to help him in his work of blessing the dogs; and they grew bitter in denouncing Pup McPoodle as an incompetent and unfaithful Ex ecutive, and the Boards of Public Health and Safety as a lot of antiquated old duffers, and the Bamboozling Committee as a lot of noodles, and not half as smart as they were cracked up to be, and the Great Many Headed Daily Press, as a fraud and a false prophet, and everybody and everything else, for betraying And when His Grace, the Serene, etc, etc., proposed that they sing a Hymn of Faith and put their trust in Heaven, they gruffly replied that Hymns of Faith were utterly inadequate as compensation for the utter loss of dogs to bleed, and as for putting trust in Heaven, that was alt very well, provided one was on the spot to look after things. And when Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite arose, and, with idiotically histrionic gestures, began to vociferate that in vision he saw the Lord as a man of war, coming with chariots of fire, lightning, thunderbolt and tempest, to the rescue of His Anointed and the discomfiture of the infidel and irreligious dogs, they rudely told him he was a bag of windy words, whose fine God didn't even deliver him in his hour of need ; for when he fell once, lately, into a hundred-foot debt hole, his fellow dogs had to fill up seventy-seven hundredths of it, before he could scramble out.

And at the very height of this confusion, a great commotion occurred amongst those near the door, and a Big Dog, followed by a whole troop of dogs, boldly entered. " What impudence!" said some of the highly perfumed and delicate lady fleas. "What a disagreeable smell of dog," said others. The Charity-Ball enthusiasts, at sight of the dirty mob, fainted dead away; the fattest of the-salaried barkers sneaked out by the side door; while the eminent, wealthy and Monstrous Fleas, to hide their terror, grew truculent and made a great hubbub and threatening; but the Big Dog in a voice of thunder, bade them be silent. The terror-stricken fleas fell flat, and the Big Dog advancing, extended his huge paw, and thus addressed them: "Listen, most eminent and respectable representatives of the most eminent and respectable order of pimp?, barnacles and bloodsuckers ; I and my gang of fellow-sufferers have been at the door of your convention for some time past, and we have heard all your elaborateschemes which you have concocted for our welfare.