Part 8 (2/2)

He drinks from it doubtless.

(_Silence_.)

TOBY-DOG

She's not back yet! Heaven grant She isn't lost, as I was one day in the streets of Paris!

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

I'm hungry!

TOBY-DOG

I'm hungry! What are we going to eat this evening?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

I saw a chicken. It made a silly noise and dropped red blood on the kitchen floor, soiling it far more than I ever did, or you either--yet no one whipped it. But Emily put it in the fire, to teach it a lesson. I licked up some of the blood ...

TOBY-DOG, (_yawns_)

Chicken ... it makes my mouth water. She'll say: ”Here Toby, bones!” and throw me the carca.s.s.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

How badly you speak! He says: ”Little chicken bones, Kiki, little chicken bones!”

TOBY-DOG, (_surprised_)

But no _really_ it's, ”Here, Toby, bones!” that She says.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

He speaks better than She does.

TOBY-DOG, (_incompetent_)

Ah?... Tell me, do birds taste anything like chicken?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_whose eyes light up suddenly_)

No ... they're far better, they're alive. Ha, the quivering bird, the warm feathers, the delicious little brain ... you feel it all crackling between your teeth!

TOBY-DOG

Oh, you make me sick! It always worries me to see tiny animals like that flutter about ... and birds are dear, good little things.

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