warm feathers, the delicious little brain ... you feel it all crackling
between your teeth!

TOBY-DOG

Oh, you make me sick! It always worries me to see tiny animals like that
flutter about ... and birds are dear, good little things.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_dryly_)

Don't you believe it, they're only good to eat. They're noisy, stupid
creatures, infatuated with themselves, _made_ to be eaten. ... You know
the two jays?

TOBY-DOG

Not very well.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE They live in the little wood. When I walk by they laugh
a sardonic "tiac, tiac," because I wear a bell at my neck. In vain do I
hold my head very stiffly and put my paws down _very_ gently, my bell
tinkles and the two creatures scream from the top of the fir-tree. Just
let me get hold of them, one of these days!...

(_He lays back his ears and raises the hair along his back_.)

TOBY-DOG, (_pensive_) Positively, Cat, there are times when I don't know
you. We are talking quietly and suddenly you bristle like a
bottle-brush; or we happen to be playing amicably together and I bark
behind your back--bow, wow-wow!--just for fun; then,--one doesn't know