He
must suffer, poor fellow! Perhaps if I speak kindly to him ... (_he
calls very politely_) Cat!

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_spitting furiously_)

Khhh!...

TOBY-DOG, (_jumping back_)

Oh, you said a bad word! You look awful! Have you a pain anywhere?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

Go away! I'm a martyr.... Go away I tell you, or I'll blow fire at you!

TOBY-DOG, (_ingenuous_)

But why?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

Why!--Because you're free, because I'm in this basket, because the
basket's in a foul carriage which is shaking me to pieces, and because
the serenity of those two exasperates me.

TOBY-DOG

Would you like me to look out and tell you what one sees from the
carriage window?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

Everything is equally odious to me.

TOBY-DOG, (_having looked out, comes back_)

I haven't seen anything....

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_bitterly_)

Thanks just the same.

TOBY-DOG

I mean I haven't seen anything that's easy to describe. Some green
things which pass right close to us--so close and so fast that they give
one a slap in the eye. A flat field turning 'round and 'round and over
there, a little pointed steeple--it's running as fast as the carriage.
Another field all red with blossoming clover has just given me another
slap in the eye--a red slap. The earth is sinking in--or else we're
going up, I'm not sure which. I see way off, _far_ away, some green
lawns dotted with white daisies--perhaps they're cows.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_with sarcasm_)

Or wafers, for sealing letters--or anything you like.

TOBY-DOG

Aren't you the least little bit amused? KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_with a
sinister laugh_)

Ha! Ask of the damned ...

TOBY-DOG

Of whom?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_more and more melodramatic, but without conviction_)

... of the damned in his vat of boiling oil, if anything amuses him!
Mine is not physical torment. I suffer imprisonment, humiliation,
darkness, neglect--

(_The train stops. A conductor on the platform cries "Aw-ll a-bor!!...
awl aborr!!"_)

TOBY-DOG, (_bewildered_)

Someone's crying out! There's an accident!! Let's run!!!

(_He throws himself against the carriage door and scratches madly at
it_.) SHE, (_half asleep_)

Toby dear, you're a nuisance!

TOBY-DOG, (_distracted_)

Oh, you inexplicable person! How can you sit there quietly? Don't you
hear those cries? They're stopping now--the accident has gone away. Wish
I'd known ...

(_The train starts again_.)

HE, (_throwing down his paper_