Barks and Purrs | Page 3

are gone! These flies that you're pursuing--I hardly felt
their little teasing feet through my thick fur. The merest touch, like a
caress, now and then thrilled along the silky sloping hairs which clothe
me.... But then you never act with any discretion. Your vulgar gayety is
a nuisance, and when sad you howl like a low comedian.
TOBY-DOG, (bitterly)
If you woke up just to tell me that--

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (correcting)
Of course you'll remember 'twas you woke me.
TOBY-DOG
I was so uncomfortable, I wanted someone to help me, to give me a
word of encouragement....
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
I don't know any digestive words.
(Pause.)
Fancy their giving me a bad character when ... Just examine your
conscience a bit and compare us. Hunger and heat wear you out and
drive you mad; cold makes your blood curdle....
TOBY-DOG, (vexed)
Mine is a sensitive nature.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
A demoniacal nature, you mean!
TOBY-DOG
No, I don't mean that. You--you're a monstrous egoist.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Perhaps.... You and the Two-Paws don't understand what you're
pleased to call a cat's egoism.... Our instinct of self-preservation, our
dignity, our modest reserve, our attitude of weary renunciation (which
comes of the hopelessness of ever being understood by them), they dub,
in haphazard fashion, egoism. You're not a very discriminating dog, but
at least you're free from prejudice. Will you understand me better? A

cat is a guest in the house, not a plaything. Truly these are strange times
we're living in! The Two-Paws, He and She, have they alone the right
to be sad or joyful, to lick plates, to scold, or to go about the house
indulging their capricious humors? I too have my whims, my sorrows,
my irregular appetite, my hours of reverie when I wish to be alone....
TOBY-DOG, (attentive and conscientious)
I'm listening, but I can hardly follow what you say. It's so
complicated--a bit over my head, you know. But you astonish me! Are
they in the habit of hindering you in your changeful moods? You mew,
and they open the door. You lie on the paper--the sacred paper He's
scratching on--He moves away, marvelous condescension!--and leaves
you his soiled page. You meander up and down his scratching table,
obviously in quest of mischief, your nose wrinkled up, your tail giving
quick little jerks back and forth like a pendulum. She watches you
laughing, while He announces "the promenade of devastation." How
then, can you accuse Them--
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (insincere)
I don't accuse Them. After all, psychological subtleties are not in your
line.
TOBY-DOG
Don't speak so fast. I need time to understand. It seems to me--
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (slyly)
Pray, don't hurry! Your digestion might suffer in consequence.
TOBY-DOG, (unconscious of the irony)
You're right! I've some trouble in expressing myself to-day.--Well, here
goes: it seems to me that of the two of us it's you they make the most of,
and yet you do all the grumbling.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE

A dog's logic, that! The more one gives the more I demand.
TOBY-DOG
That's wrong. It's indiscreet.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Not at all. I have a right to everything.
TOBY-DOG
To everything? And I?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
I don't imagine you lack anything, do you?
TOBY-DOG
Ah, I don't know. Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like
crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like
to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there
is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil
will ever come....
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (jeering)
And then what dreadful thing happens?
TOBY-DOG
You know very well! Inevitably, at that moment She appears, carrying
a bottle with horrible yellow stuff floating in it--Castor Oil! Wilful and
unfeeling, she holds me between her strong knees, opens my jaws--
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Close them tighter!

TOBY-DOG
But I'm afraid of hurting her--and my tongue, horrified, tastes the slimy
mawkish stuff. I choke and spit, my poor face is convulsed and the end
of this torture is long in coming.... You've seen me afterwards dragging
myself around, melancholy, my head hanging, listening to the
unwholesome glouglou the oil makes in my stomach....
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Once when I was little She tried to give me castor oil. I scratched and
bit her so, she never tried again. Ha! She must have thought she held
the devil between her knees. I squirmed, blew fire through my nostrils,
multiplied my twenty claws by a hundred, my teeth by one thousand,
and finally--disappeared as if by magic.
TOBY-DOG
I wouldn't dare do that. You see, I love her. I love her enough to forgive
her even the torture of the bath.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (interested)
You do? Tell me how it feels. It makes me shiver all over, just to see
her putting you in the water.
TOBY-DOG
Alas.... Listen then, and