"
... Then She takes out her knife and opens nuts, fifty, a _hundred_
nuts, and forgets the time ... There's no end to the things She does.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_slyly_)
And what do you do all that time?
TOBY-DOG
I--well--I just wait for her.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
I admire you!
TOBY-DOG
Once in a while, squatting down, She eagerly scratches the earth, toils
and sweats over it; then I jump 'round her, delighted to see her at
something so useful and so familiar. But her feeble scent deceives her.
_I_ never smell mole, or shrew-mouse-of-the-rosy-paws, in the holes
_She_ digs. And how explain her utter lack of purpose? Presently,
falling back on her haunches, She brandishes a hairy-rooted herb and
cries: "I have it, the jade!" I lie in the damp grass and tremble, or
dig my nose (She calls it my snout) into the earth to get the
complicated odors of it. ... When there are three or four scents all
blended, all mixed together, can you distinguish that of the mole from
that of the hare which passed quickly, or the bird which rested there?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Certainly I can. My nose is highly educated.
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