TOBY-DOG

No, not cruelly, but artfully. I never can tell what's coming next. This
morning She bent down as if to speak to me, lifted one of my "tiny
elephant's ears," as She calls them, and sent a sharp cry into it, which
went to the very back of my brain.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

Horrors!

TOBY-DOG

Was it right or wrong? I can't decide even now. It started waves of
nervousness running madly through me. Then, She has a fancy for making
me do tricks. Almost every day I must--"Do the Fish, Toby dear." She
lifts me in her arms and squeezes me until I gasp. My poor dumb mouth
opens as a carp's does when they're drowning it in air....

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

That's _just_ like Her!

TOBY-DOG

Suddenly I find myself free--and still alive, miraculously saved by the
power of her will. How beautiful life seems to me then! How fondly I
lick the hand hanging at her side, the hem of her dress!

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_contemptuously_)