_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. ... 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_) The poor beast is hungry. SHE, (_now very wide awake_) You think so? Well, I am too. But Toby is to eat very little. HE, (_anxiously_) And Kiki-the-Demure?