Part 7 (1/2)

I'm hungry. One doesn't hear the noise of plates in the next room. Isn't it dinner time?

TOBY-DOG, (_gets up, slowly stretches his forepaws and yawns, darting forth a heraldic tongue with curly end_) I don't know ... I'm hungry.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

Where is She? How is it you're not at her heels?

TOBY-DOG, (_embarra.s.sed, nibbling his nails_)

She's in the garden I believe, picking up plums.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

Those yellow b.a.l.l.s that rain about one's ears? I know them. You've seen her then? I bet She scolded you ... What have you been doing now?

TOBY-DOG, (_self-conscious, turning away his wrinkled, toad-like face_)

She told me to return to the house because--because I too, was eating plums.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

She did well! You have depraved tastes--the tastes of men.

TOBY-DOG, (_offended_)

Say--no one ever sees me eating bad fis.h.!.+ And never, _never_ will I understand how you can go into such fits over a dead frog, or that herb.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

Valerian.

TOBY-DOG

That's it, I guess ... An herb--is medicine, isn't it?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

Medicine, indeed! Valerian ... but no _you_, can't understand ... I've seen Her laugh and go on, as I do over the valerian, after having emptied a gla.s.s of fetid wine that jumped dangerously too. As for the dead frog--so dead that it seems a bit of dry russia leather in the form of a frog--it's a sachet, impregnated with rare musk, with which I wish to scent my fur.

TOBY-DOG

Oh, you talk very well--but She always scolds and says that you smell bad after it, and He says the same thing.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

They're nothing but Two-Paws, both of them. You, poor thing, belittle yourself by seeking to imitate them. You stand on your hind legs, wear a coat when it rains, eat plums--for shame!--and those big green b.a.l.l.s, the malicious trees let fall sometimes, when I'm pa.s.sing underneath.

TOBY-DOG

Apples?