Part 1 (2/2)

_A dog's eyes hold the sorrow of having, since the earliest days of creation, licked the whip of his incorrigible persecutor in vain. For nothing has mollified man--not the prey brought him by a famis.h.i.+ng spaniel, nor the humble guilelessness of the shepherd-dog, guarding the peace of the shadowy flocks under the stars_.

_A tragic fear s.h.i.+nes in the cat's eyes. ”What are you going to do to me now?” it seems to ask, lying on a rubbish-heap, a prey to mange and hunger--and feverishly it waits the new torture that will shatter its nervous system_.

_But have no fear ... Madame Colette w.i.l.l.y is very kind. She quickly dispels the hereditary dread of Toby-Dog and Kiki-the-Demure. She meliorates the race, so that dogs and cats will learn in the end that it is less dull to frequent a poet than an unhappy College de France candidate--had this candidate proven more copiously still, that the author of ”Memoires d'Outre-Tombe” had topsyturvily described the jawbone of the Crocodile_.

_Toby-Dog and Kiki-the-Demure well know that their mistress is a lady who would do no harm--neither to a piece of sugar nor to a mouse; a lady who, for our delight, jumps a rope she has woven of flower-words which she never bruises, and with which she perfumes us; a lady who sings, with the voice of a clear French rivulet, that wistful tenderness which makes the hearts of animals beat so fast_.

FRANCIS JAMMES.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, A Maltese cat.

TOBY-DOG, A French bull-dog.

HE, } SHE,} Master and Mistress (of minor importance).

SENTIMENTALITIES

_The sunny porch_. TOBY-DOG _and_ KIKI-THE-DEMURE _sprawl on the hot stone-flags, taking their after luncheon nap. The silence of Sunday prevails, yet_ TOBY-DOG _is not asleep: the flies and a heavy luncheon torment him. Hind-quarters flattened out frog-fas.h.i.+on, he drags himself on his belly up to_ KIKI-THE-DEMURE _whose striped body is perfectly quiet_.

TOBY-DOG

Are you asleep?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_purrs feebly_)

TOBY-DOG

Are you even alive? You're so flat! You look like the empty skin of a cat.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_in faltering tones_)

L-e-t--m-e--a-l-o-n-e....

TOBY-DOG

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