! 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
aprons. 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
gods, 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. ...