miry herbage.

_Shepherd._--A pictur o' a back-green in fowre words. I see it and
them.

_Tickler._--The four-story fall has given them fresh fury and more
fiery life. What tails!--each as thick as my arm, and rustling with
electricity like the northern streamers. The Red Rover is generally
uppermost--but not always, for Tom has him by the jugular like a very
bulldog--and his small, sharp, tiger-teeth, entangled in the fur, pierce
deeper and deeper into the flesh--while Tommy keeps tearing away at his
rival, as if he would eat his way into his wind-pipe. Heavier than Tom
Tortoiseshell is the Red Rover by a good many pounds;--but what is weight
to elasticity--what is body to soul? In the long tussle, the hero ever
vanquishes the ruffian--as the Cock of the North the Gander.

_North_ (_bowing_).--Proceed.

_Tickler._--Cats' heads are seen peering over the tops of walls, and
then their lengthening bodies, running crouchingly along the copestones,
with pricked-up ears and glaring eyes, all attracted towards one common
centre--the back-green of the inextinguishable battle. Some dropping, and
some leaping down, from all altitudes--lo! a general _melée_! For
Tabitha, having through a skylight forced her way down stairs, and out of
the kitchen-window into the back-area, is sitting pensively on the steps,

"And like another Helen fires another Troy."

Detachments come wheeling into the field of battle from all imaginable and
unimaginable quarters;--and you now see before you all the cats in