'll plant myself firmly in front of him, and the
desire of his death will be so strong in my eyes, that perhaps, he'll
die when he meets my look ...

TOBY-DOG, (_diverted_)

And then?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_continuing_)

I carried out my plan. But the horse I had waited for in fear and
trembling, just blew through his nostrils a long jet of foul-smelling
vapor, and _I_ fell back in atrocious convulsions.

TOBY-DOG, (_Inwardly writhing with laughter_)

You don't exaggerate?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_serious_)

Never! And She must needs go climbing on a horse's back, holding fast to
four cords, one leg this side and the other that. ... Strange
aberration!

TOBY-DOG

We don't think alike, Cat. For me, the horse is, after man, the most
beautiful thing in the world.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_vexed_) And where do I come in?

TOBY-DOG, (_evasive and courteous_)

Oh, you're a _Cat_. But a horse, and with Her on his back! What a
beautiful picture they make, high up in the blue air! To gaze on it, I
have to throw my head 'way back on my thick neck. The horse lends her
his speed. Now at last, She can race with me when I go off on a mad run.
Sometimes I'm ahead, ears floating back and tongue hanging out like a
little flag--the angular shadow of the horse on the road in front. If I
follow her, a fragrant dust blows back at me. It smells of warm leather,
moist beast, and a little of her own perfume too. The road runs under
me, like a ribbon that someone is pulling. Oh, what joy it is to be so
little and so swift, running along in the shadow of a great galloping
horse! When we halt, I pant like a motor, between the legs of my friend,
who snorts and in the kindliest way puts down his fettered mouth and
sprinkles me ...

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

I know, I know! The horse "with long mane ashake; hoofs, heavy with
tumult; eyes, glimmering white." ...You are the last of the
Romanticists.

TOBY-DOG

I'm not the last of the Romanticists. I'm a little bull-dog that came
into the world one evening, almost under the feet of a chestnut mare.
She didn't lie down all night long, she was so afraid of crushing my
mother and her puppies. A little bull-dog like me is almost the child of
a horse. I lay in the warm straw against her warm flanks, I drank out of
the stable pails. I used to get up when I heard the sound of hoofs
coming in and I took an interest in the washing of the carriages, until
the day She came and picked me out--_me_, the best-loo