Part 9 (2/2)
TOBY-DOG
Why not?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
I don't want to.
TOBY-DOG
Oh! but you're tiresome! Watch me jump and arch my neck like a little horse and try to catch my stubby tail. Now I turn 'round and 'round--and--heavens! the whole room spins!--It's--st--opping--now.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Insufferable creature!
TOBY-DOG
Insufferable yourself! Look out, I'm going to run at you as She does, when She's merry, crying ”Ha, cat!”
(KIKI-THE-DEMURE, _without rising, puts up a paw bristling with claws and spotted underneath with rose color and black; it looks like a th.o.r.n.y flower_.)
If you dare!...
TOBY-DOG, (_in a frenzy_) I do dare! Bow-wow-wow! Ha, cat! ha, cat!
(KIKI-THE-DEMURE, _exasperated, gives a spring and hangs on the table-cloth, slowly dragging it down. A lamp and various things fall to the ground. Terrified silence. The two animals, crouching under an arm-chair, await punishment_.)
HE _appears at the study door, holding a pen, like a bit, between his teeth_.
Thunder and blitzen! What is it now? This cursed menagerie has overturned everything! Where's your Mistress? What a place this is to be sure! Dinner never on time!... (etc., etc., etc....)
(_The two guilty ones, who well know the harmlessness of such outbursts, laugh quietly to themselves and lying flat as bed-room slippers, look at one another through the fringes of the chair. The garden gate opens_.
SHE _comes in carrying a basket, full of fragrant plums; her hands are sticky from their sugariness, her hair tumbled_. SHE _stands horrified, before the disaster_.)
SHE
Oh! They've been fighting again, have they? (_Without conviction_.) Dear _me,_ what nasty creatures! I'll give them away! I'll sell them!!--I'll _kill_ them!!! (_But the cat and dog, groveling in exaggerated humility, crawl up to her, and speak together_.)
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Purr-rr-rr!...There you are!...It's very late ...Toby attacked me; it's he who's broken everything. I believe he went mad from hunger.... You smell good, of gra.s.s and the twilight. You sat down on some wild thyme.
Come!...Tell your Master to carry me on his shoulder--the meat will be overdone, I'm afraid. You'll carve the chicken very quickly, won't you, and you'll keep the browned skin for me? If you wish I'll stretch out my paw like a spoon, which knows how to take up the littlest morsels, and carry them to my mouth with that human gesture that makes you laugh so--you and He.... Come!
TOBY-DOG Hiii ... hiii ... there you are at last! I'm so unhappy when you're away. You banished me ... you didn't love me ... The lamp fell down all by itself ... Come! I'm awfully hungry, but I'll gladly go without dinner, if you'll promise to take me with you always wherever you go ... yes, even out in the twilight, though it makes me sad, I'll willingly follow you there ... my nose close, close to the hem of your dress....
SHE, (_disarmed and quite indifferent to the cataclysm_)
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