_Read her book and you shall see how accurate are my assertions. It has pleased Madame Colette Willy to embody in a couple of delightful animals, the aroma of gardens, the freshness of the field, the heat of state-roads,--the passions of men.... For through this girlish laughter ringing in the forest, I tell you, I hear the sobbing of a well-spring. One does not stoop to a poodle or tom-cat, without feeling the heart wrung with dumb anguish. One is sensible, in comparing ourselves to them, of all that separates and of all that unites us_. * * * * * _A dog's eyes hold the sorrow of having, since the earliest days of creation, licked the whip of his incorrigible persecutor in vain. For nothing has mollified man--not the prey brought him by a famishing spaniel, nor the humble guilelessness of the shepherd-dog, guarding the peace of the shadowy flocks under the stars_. _A tragic fear shines in the cat's eyes. "What are you going to do to me now?" it seems to ask, lying on a rubbish-heap, a prey to mange and hunger--and feverishly it waits the new torture that will shatter its nervous system_. _But have no fear ... Madame Colette Willy is very kind. She quickly dispels the hereditary dread of Toby-Dog and Kiki-the-Demure. She meliorates the race, so that dogs and cats will learn in the end that it is less dull to frequent a poet than an unhappy Collège de France candidate--had this candidate proven more copiously still, that the author of "Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe" had topsyturvily described the jawbone of the Crocodile_. * * * * * _Toby-Dog and Kiki-the-Demure well know that their mistress is a lady who would do no harm--neither to a piece of sugar nor to a mouse; a lady who, for our delight, jumps a rope she has woven of flower-words which she never bruises, and with which she perfumes us; a lady who sings, with the voice of a clear French rivulet, that wistful tenderness which makes the hearts of animals beat so fast_. FRANCIS JAMMES. * * * * * DRAMATIS PERSONAE KIKI-THE-DEMURE, A Maltese cat. TOBY-DOG, A French bull-dog. HE, } SHE,} Master and Mistress (of minor importance). SENTIMENTALITIES _The sunny porch_. TOBY-DOG _and_ KIKI-THE-DEMURE _sprawl on the hot stone-flags, taking their after luncheon nap. The silence of Sunday prevails, yet_ TOBY-DOG _is not asleep: the flies and a heavy luncheon torment him. Hind-quarters flattened out frog-fashion, he drags himself on his belly up to_ KIKI-THE-DEMURE _whose striped body is perfectly quiet_. TOBY-DOG Are you asleep? KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_purrs feebly_) TOBY-DOG Are you even alive? You're so flat! You look like the empty skin of a cat. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_in faltering tones_) L-e-t--m-e--a-l-o-n-e.... TOBY-DOG Not sick, are you? KIKI-THE-DEMURE