Chapter XXXVIII (The Times Out Of Joint) (The Times Out Of Joint). The Times Out Of Joint. - The Police Dogs Growl And Threaten Revolt. - The Salaried Barkers Awake And Get Up A "Revival." - Great Conference Of All The Great Lights Of Pietydom. - A Long Pull And A Strong Pull, And A Pull Altogether, For The Salvation Of The Dogs, Resolved On.

THE bamboozle of the Belt of Liberty had been a grand success while it lasted. As a dream, a stimulating mental narcotism, a beautiful period of sweet oblivion, into which the hard and cruel facts of the dogs' daily lives had been thrown and temporarily buried, it was very restful and enjoyable to them. But starvation, disease and universal tyranny, though buried, were not decreed out of being; and scarcely had the last tones of sweet Liberty's Bell died out and the show closed, ere those horrid realities began to creep and sneak from their graves and smite the yet dazed and dreaming dogs. With skeleton hands they smote them on the head and in the stomach, and with mercilessly cruel fingers poked open their hypnotized eyes, and with fiendish laughter mocked them, and bade them look and see that in spite of Liberty Shows of every sort, the times were somehow out of joint Times were indeed bad. Gaunt Famine, gaunter than ever, stalked through the land, smiting down her victims more pitilessly than ever, as though in jealous revenge for the attentions they had lately lavished on her rival, Liberty. Of course the dogs did the starving - most of it; but as the dogs were the source of the fleas' existence, why, even many of them fell sick of hunger and dwindled away and died. Even the police dogs, for whom Pup McPoodle and all the Monstrous Fleas made extra special strenuous efforts to keep in good flesh, seeing that their zeal for Order depended entirely on that, did suffer somewhat from the stringency. They did not always get their basketfuls punctually, and were several times delayed in their dining, and they began to grumble and complain that if this kind of outrage on their sacred carcases were not soon stopped, they would get up a riot on their own hook and club somebody, for they had never been used to being hungry, and by the great Holy Locust, they were not going to be, either, without knowing the reason why.

Irreligion, Vice, Crime and Immorality stalked abroad, and gave the multitudinous compulsory-virtue societies a tremendous rush of business, insomuch that they had to work overtime. But an evil of far more portentousness and gravity than all these combined ensued: the salaried barkers in the churches had their basketfuls diminished; their churches were sometimes empty and were never full.

Therefore, as the salaried barkers had, through long experience, come to observe that a famine was nearly always accompanied by what they called a "great outpouring of the spirit," and the setting in of a great "revival," and as a "revival" meant fuller churches, and consequently a revival of the supplies of meat, they determined to hump themselves with great energy, and bring about the revival that, according to the famine, was now about due. So they called a conference of all the fat fleas, the eminent fleas, and the most pious of the Monstrous Fleas, and the barking dogs, not only of Canisville, but of the country roundabout, to devise newer and better schemes for what they Called "reaching the masses," - or "them asses "as one totally depraved dog profanely remarked.

And it was a great time. For weeks all the lady fleas, and all other fleas who were in "sympathy" with the dogs, and had their "welfare " at heart, were busy every day in getting a place ready for the reception of the conference. It was fitted up "regardless of expense," and decorated especially with costly flowers, and mottoed banners, and choice texts of "Holy Scripture," exquisitely wrought in gold and silver, on expensive silks. The air was heavy with perfumes of the rarest sorts; the walls were resplendent with mirrors and pictures, loaned by the wealthiest suckers; and everything that could be done was done to minister to the "solemnity" of the occasion, and to the comfort of the most eminent and fat-salaried bark-ers - the D. D.'s, L.L. D.'s, B. A.'s M. A.'s, Reverends, Very Reverends, Much Reverends, Right Reverends, Wrong Reverends, Right Reverend Fathers in God, His Grace, His Eminence, His Sacredness, His Holiness, who had been invited from far and near, to assist Heaven in bringing about the "revival." And a great and shining galaxy of fat and Monstrous Fleas, with "Professor," "Honorable," "Right Honorable," "His Nibs," "His Nobs," "His Jags," "His Jiblets," "His Joblots," to their names were there also. Oh, they were a highly select and respectable and well-conditioned body of fleas and barkers that met together that day to devise the ways and means of making poor dogs happy.

Now it was remarked that to this great conference of the pious fleas and their salaried barkers to devise the salvation of dogs not a solitary poor working dog was invited, and no one even called to ask the opinion of any dog on the subject; but all the eminent and pious fleas there proceeded to make speeches, which were duly taken down and recorded in the book of the chronicles of the world's eminent saints, who have spent their lives trying to lift up the poor, while riding on their backs.

And Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite, who had had a good breakfast and was more than usually full of divine zeal, said they were grieved beyond expression to find that, in spite of the efforts that had been expended for the benefit of poor dogs, their poverty, discontent and irreligion were on the increase. But not this alone; for lately it had come to their knowledge that far more alarming symptoms had broken out In several quarters, it was rumored, there had appeared several strange dogs of uncouth visage and long hair, who had evidently determined to poison the minds of the whole community of dogs.