Barks and Purrs Part 4

ON THE TRAIN

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, TOBY-DOG, SHE _and_ HE, _have taken their places in a first-cla.s.s compartment. The train rolls along towards distant mountains, and the freedom of Summer-time_. TOBY, _on a leash, lifts an inquiring nose to the window_. HE _has strewn the carriage with newspapers_: KIKI-THE-DEMURE, _silent and invisible in a closed basket, is under his immediate protection_. SHE, _leaning back against the dusty cushions, dreams of the mountain she loves best and of the low house on it, weighted down with jasmine and virginia-creeper_.

TOBY-DOG

How fast this carriage goes! It can't be our regular coachman. I haven't seen the horses, but they smell very bad and make black smoke. Oh, Silent Dreamer, look at me and tell me--shall we arrive soon?

(_No response_. TOBY _gets fidgety and blows through his nostrils_.) SHE

Hush! Toby, hush!

TOBY-DOG

I've hardly said a word.... Shall we arrive soon?

(_He turns towards his master, who is reading, and puts a discreet paw on the edge of his knee_.)

HE

'Sh!...

TOBY-DOG, (_resigned_)

Hard luck! No one wants to talk to me. I'm bored and what's more, I don't know this carriage well enough. I'm tired out. They woke me very early this morning. I amused myself by running all over the house. They had hidden the chairs under sheets, wrapped up the lamps, rolled up the rugs. Things were white and changed and awful. There was a horrid smell of camphor everywhere. My eyes filled with water, I sneezed under the chairs and slid on the bare floor in my haste to follow the maids' white ap.r.o.ns. They bustled about among trunks with such unwonted zeal, that I was sure something exceptional was going to happen. At the last minute just as She came in, calling: "Toby's collar and the cat's basket!

Quick! put the cat in his basket!"--just as she was saying that, my chum disappeared. It was indescribable! He, terrible to see, swore by all the G.o.ds, and struck the floor with his cane, furious because they had allowed his Kiki to get away. She called "Kiki!" at first supplicatingly, then in threatening tones, and the maids brought empty plates, meant to deceive, and yellow paper from the butcher's. I really thought my chum had left this world, when suddenly--there he was perched on top of the book-case, looking down on us with an expression of contempt in his green eyes. She put up her arms: "Kiki _will_ you come down immediately! You are going to make us lose the train!" But he didn't come down and it made me dizzy--though I was on the ground--to see him way up there walking and turning about and miauling shrilly to tell us how impossible he found it to obey. He was about frantic and kept saying: "Heavens, he's going to fall." But She smiled skeptically, went out of the room and came back armed with the whip. The whip said, "crack!" twice only; then a miracle happened I think, 'cause the cat leaped to the floor, softer and more bouncey than our plaything, the ball of wool. _I_ would have broken to pieces falling like that!... He has been in this basket ever since.... (TOBY _goes to the basket_.) Ah!

here's a little peek-hole.... I see his whiskers ... they're like white needles. Whew! What eyes! (_He jumps back_.) I'm rather afraid. One can't really shut a cat up; he always manages to get out somehow. ... He must suffer, poor fellow! Perhaps if I speak kindly to him ... (_he calls very politely_) Cat!

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_spitting furiously_)

Khhh!...

TOBY-DOG, (_jumping back_)

Oh, you said a bad word! You look awful! Have you a pain anywhere?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

Go away! I'm a martyr.... Go away I tell you, or I'll blow fire at you!

TOBY-DOG, (_ingenuous_)

But why?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

Why!--Because you're free, because I'm in this basket, because the basket's in a foul carriage which is shaking me to pieces, and because the serenity of those two exasperates me.

TOBY-DOG

Would you like me to look out and tell you what one sees from the carriage window?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

Everything is equally odious to me.

TOBY-DOG, (_having looked out, comes back_)

I haven't seen anything....

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_bitterly_)

Thanks just the same.

TOBY-DOG

I mean I haven't seen anything that's easy to describe. Some green things which pa.s.s right close to us--so close and so fast that they give one a slap in the eye. A flat field turning 'round and 'round and over there, a little pointed steeple--it's running as fast as the carriage.

Another field all red with blossoming clover has just given me another slap in the eye--a red slap. The earth is sinking in--or else we're going up, I'm not sure which. I see way off, _far_ away, some green lawns dotted with white daisies--perhaps they're cows.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_with sarcasm_)

Or wafers, for sealing letters--or anything you like.

TOBY-DOG

Aren't you the least little bit amused? KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_with a sinister laugh_)

Ha! Ask of the d.a.m.ned ...

TOBY-DOG

Of whom?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_more and more melodramatic, but without conviction_)

... of the d.a.m.ned in his vat of boiling oil, if anything amuses him!

Mine is not physical torment. I suffer imprisonment, humiliation, darkness, neglect--

(_The train stops. A conductor on the platform cries "Aw-ll a-bor!!...

awl aborr!!"_)

TOBY-DOG, (_bewildered_)

Someone's crying out! There's an accident!! Let's run!!!

(_He throws himself against the carriage door and scratches madly at it_.) SHE, (_half asleep_)

Toby dear, you're a nuisance!