Barks and Purrs Part 2

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 s.h.i.+ver all over, just to see her putting you in the water.

TOBY-DOG

Alas.... Listen then, and pity me. Sometimes, when She's come out of her tub with nothing on her but her skin, her soft hairless skin that I lick respectfully,--She spills out more warm water, throws in a brown brick which smells of tar, and calls, "Toby!" That's enough! The soul quits my body; my legs shake under me. Something s.h.i.+nes on the water--the picture of a window all twisted out of shape--it dances about and blinds me. She seizes me, poor swooning thing that I am, and plunges me in....

Ye G.o.ds! From that time on I'm lost.... My one hope is in her. My eyes fasten themselves on hers, while a close warmth sticks to me like another skin on top of mine.... The brick's all foamy now ... I smell tar ... my eyes and nostrils smart ... there are storms in my ears. She grows excited, breathes loud and fast, laughs, and scrubs me light-heartedly. At last She rescues me, fis.h.i.+ng me out by the nape of my neck, I paw the air, begging for life; then comes the rough towel and the warm coverlet where, exhausted, I relish my convalescence....

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_deeply impressed_)

Calm yourself.

TOBY-DOG

Jove! The telling it alone!... But--you old sly-boots--didn't I see her one day armed with a sponge standing over _you,_ holding _you_ down on the toilet table?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_quite embarra.s.sed, las.h.i.+ng his tail_)

An old story! The long, fluffy hairs on my legs (which give them the outline of a Zouave's) had somehow gotten dirty. She insisted upon was.h.i.+ng me. I persuaded her that I suffered atrociously under the sponge....

TOBY-DOG

What a fibber you are! Did She believe you?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

'Um ... at first. It was my own fault tho' when She didn't. Turned over on my back, I proffered the candid belly, the terrified and forgiving eyes of a lamb about to be sacrificed. I felt a slight coolness, nothing more. A fear that my sensibilities might be destroyed, took possession of me. My rhythmical wailings increased, then subsided, then went up again like the noise of the sea (you know the strength of my voice). I imitated the calf, the whipped child, the cat in the night, the wind under the door. Little by little I grew enraptured with my own song, so that long after She had finished soiling me with cold water I continued wailing, my eyes fixed on the ceiling. Then She laughed tactlessly and cried out, "You're as untruthful as a woman!"

TOBY-DOG, (_with conviction_)

That _was_ annoying.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

I was angry with her the entire afternoon.

TOBY-DOG

Oh, as to sulking, you do your share! _I_ never can. I forget injuries.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_dryly_)

You lick the hand that chastens you. Oh it's well known!

TOBY-DOG, (_gullible_)

I lick the hand that--yes, that's it exactly.--An awfully pretty expression.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

Not mine.... Dignity doesn't trouble _you_ any! My word! I'm often ashamed for you. You love everybody. You take all sorts of rebuffs without even raising your back. You're as pleasant and as ba.n.a.l as a public garden.

TOBY-DOG Don't you believe it, you ill-bred cat! You think you know everything and you don't understand simple politeness. Frankly now, would you have me snarl at His or Her friends' heels,--well-dressed people who know my name (lots of people _I_ don't know know my name) and good-naturedly pull my ears?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

I hate new faces.

TOBY-DOG

I don't love them either--whatever you say. I love--Her and Him.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

And I, Him--and Her.

TOBY-DOG

Oh, I guessed _your_ preference long ago. There's a sort of secret understanding between you two--

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_smiling mysteriously and abandoning himself to his reverie_)

An understanding, yes--secret and profound. He rarely speaks but makes a noise like a mouse, scratching his paper. It's for Him I've treasured up my little heart, my precious cat's heart, and He, without words, has given me his. This exchange makes me happy and reserved. Now and then with that pretty, wayward, ruling instinct which makes us cats rivals of women, I try my power over him. When we are alone, I point my ears forward devilishly as a sign that I'm about to spring upon his scratching paper. The tap, tap, tap of my paws straight through pens and letters and everything scattered about, is addressed to him as well as the insistent miauling when I beg for liberty. "Hymn to the Door-k.n.o.b,"

He laughingly calls it, or "The Plaint of the Sequestered Cat." The tender contemplation of my inspiring eyes is for him alone; they weigh on his bent head, until the look I'm calling searches and meets mine in a shock of souls, so foreseen and so sweet, that I must needs close my lids to hide the exquisite shyness I feel.

As for Her, she flutters about too much, often jostles me, holds my paws together and rocks me in the air, pets me in excited fas.h.i.+on, laughs aloud at me, imitates my voice too well--

TOBY-DOG, (_moved with indignation_)