Barks and Purrs | Page 8

melted in my mouth, there's not even the memory of it left....
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (chewing)
Breast of chicken! Purr-rr ... Goodness me! I was purring without knowing it! That won't do. They'll think me resigned to this journey. I must eat slowly, grim, and undeceived, eat for the sole purpose of keeping myself alive ...
SHE, (to the dog and cat)
Allow me to have my luncheon now, if you please. I too, like cold chicken and the hearts of lettuce, dipped in salt....
HE, (anxiously)
What shall we do to make this cat go into his basket again?
SHE
I don't know. We'll see presently ...
TOBY-DOG
Finished already? I could swallow three times that much. I say Cat, you're eating rather well for a martyr.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (fibbing)
Trouble digs a hole in one's interior. Move away please, I want to sleep now ... if I can. Perhaps a merciful dream will take me back to the house I've left, to the flowered cushion He gave me.... Home! sweet home! Rugs of bright colors for the delight of my eyes, a palm with nice shoots for me to eat, deep arm-chairs, under which I hide my woolen ball as a future surprise for myself--ah, and the cork hanging by a string to the door-latch! the tables covered with bibelots! I thread my way in and out among them and occasionally it amuses me to break some brittle thing. The dining-room is a temple! The vestibule, full of mystery; there unseen, I can watch those who come and go ... Oh narrow back-stairway, where the step of the milkman rings out for me like a morning angelus--farewell! farewell! my destiny carries me on, and who knows if ever ... But this is too sad! All the pretty things I've been saying have really begun to make me feel badly!!
(He begins a minute and mournful toilet. The train stops. A conductor on the platform cries, "Aw-ll-a-borr-a-borr!!")
TOBY-DOG
There it is again! An acci--Oh bother, I've had enough of that!
HE, (anxiously)
We're going to change trains in ten minutes. How about the cat? He'll never allow us to shut him up ...
SHE
We'll see ... Suppose we put some meat in his basket?
HE
Or perhaps petting would ...
(They approach the redoubtable KIKI and both speak together.)
HE
Kiki, my beautiful Kiki, come jump on my knee, or on my shoulder. You like that as a rule. You'll doze there and then I'll put you gently into the basket. After all, it's open-work and has a comfortable cushion to protect you from the rough wicker. Come, my dear....
SHE
Listen, Kiki. You must learn to act properly and to take life as it is. You can't stay there like that. We're going to change trains and a horrible guard will appear and say insulting things of you and your race. Besides you'd better obey, because if you don't, I--I'll give you a good whipping.
(But before she can lift her hand against his sacred fur, Kiki gets up, stretches himself, arches his back, yawns,--to show the rosy lining of his mouth, and then walks to the open basket where he lies down with an admirable air of quiet insolence. He and She exchange eloquent glances.)

DINNER IS LATE
A parlor, in the country, at the close of a long summer's day. KIKI-THE-DEMURE and TOBY-DOG doze; ears twitching and eyelids obstinately shut. Now KIKI'S lids part in a narrow slit, and disclose eyes the color of purple grapes. He yawns, with the ferocious expression of a small dragon.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (haughtily)
You're snoring!
TOBY-DOG, (who was not really asleep)
I'm not; it's you.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Impossible! I don't snore, I purr.
TOBY-DOG
Same thing.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (not condescending to a discussion)
Thank heaven, it isn't! (A silence.)
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, (embarrassed, nibbling his nails)
She's in the garden I believe, picking up plums.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Those yellow balls 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 fish! 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 glass 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