The One Hundred Hoddy-Doddys
(As the applause subsides, feathering the face of the Moonshees.) Awake, your Referendunces, awake! (They pole-vault in front of the Musnud.)
The Fifty Dizzards
(Whistling between their teeth and striking with their feather clubs.) Oh, your Very Great Referendunces! Oh! Come to! Come to! (They chatter and clog.)
Noxus Podunkus
(Batting an eye and being lifted to a sitting position.) Ah, yes! Ah, yes! Let me see... where was I? (A Dizzard, prompted by a Fuddy, repeats his last sentence.) Ah, yes! As I was saying, these, our revered leaders, taught us. It is to them, their patient and enduring labors, their deep, even profound, cogitations as to life, that we all owe all that we enjoy and revere so deeply to-day—our peace, our freedom from disturbing thought, from the besetting vice of questioning or investigating. All we have to do now is ask and re-ask and affirm and re-affirm our Sacred Questions, so ably asked and answered so many centuries since by our noble forerunners, Bonehead V. and Dish Rag III. (Separate and prolonged applause at each name, during which Podunkus again slumbers, is feathered and clubbed and lifted to a sitting position.) Ah, yes! Ah, yes! The Questions—the Questions. (He fumbles weakly about, while seven Dizzards hand him seven engrossed and gold-plated copies of the regulation Sacred Questions as made and provided for all such occasions. He stares at one feebly and continues.) Ah yes! Now I have them! The Questions—the Questions, on which, as I was saying, are based, as on a rock, all our peace, security, freedom from thought; the very, indeed, pillows—I mean pillars—of our ease and comfort. The Sacred Questions! To be sure! Question One—let me see—Question One—Question One (aside “Where is it?” A Dizzard points to it.)—Question One is most important, the very corner-stone, I might say, of our undisturbed security and ease in thoughtlessness. (Examines it closely.) It reads—it reads—Ah yes!—Now I have it!—“Have you kept the faith?” That’s it. “Have you kept the faith?” To be sure! Have we kept it, I might say? Almost the most sacred of all our Questions! Have we kept the faith? (He mumbles feebly on.) That’s it! Have we kept the faith?