_A tragic fear shines in the cat's eyes. "What are you going to do to me
now?" it seems to ask, lying on a rubbish-heap, a prey to mange and
hunger--and feverishly it waits the new torture that will shatter its
nervous system_.

_But have no fear ... Madame Colette Willy is very kind. She quickly
dispels the hereditary dread of Toby-Dog and Kiki-the-Demure. She
meliorates the race, so that dogs and cats will learn in the end that it
is less dull to frequent a poet than an unhappy Collège de France
candidate--had this candidate proven more copiously still, that the
author of "Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe" had topsyturvily described the
jawbone of the Crocodile_.

* * * * *

_Toby-Dog and Kiki-the-Demure well
know that their mistress is a lady who
would do no harm--neither to a piece of
sugar nor to a mouse; a lady who, for our
delight, jumps a rope she has woven of
flower-words which she never bruises, and
with which she perfumes us; a lady who sings,
with the voice of a clear French rivulet, that
wistful tenderness which makes the hearts of
animals beat so fast_.

FRANCIS JAMMES.

* * * * *